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UNITED STATES OF AMEEICA 



AMERICAN SONG 



A COLLECTION OF REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN 

POEMS, WITH ANALYTICAL AND CRITICAL 

STUDIES OF THE WRITERS 



WITH INTRODUCTIONS 
AND NOTES 



7 



ARTHUR B. SIMONDS, A.M. 

Fellow in the Romance Languages 
at Columbia College 






G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 West Twenty-third Street. 24 Bedford Street^ Strand, 

1894 



V 






Copyright, 1894 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 



Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by 

Ubc Itnfcfterbocfter ^ress, flew J^orlt 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 



What is a Poet ? He is a man speaking to men : a man endowed 
with more lively sensibility, more enthusiasm and tenderness, who 
has a greater knowledge of human nature, and a more comprehensive 
soul, than are supposed to be common among mankind. 

Wordsworth's "-Preface to Lyrical Ballads.'" 



PREFACE. 



The present volume has two distinct aims. It in- 
cludes, first, a compilation of American poems (mostly 
short selections) drawn from the era beginning about 
the commencement of the century and reaching to 
the present day. As a compilation, therefore, it may 
be of interest to the general reader, as well as of 
special service to a student of literature wishing to 
acquaint himself readily with types of American 
poetry. 

Secondly, the book may, it is hoped, be useful for 
making an inductive study, both of the chief Ameri- 
can poets and, less completely, of the other poets 
from whose writings extracts are taken according to 
the plan of the volume. The order in critical study 
should be, first, the single poem ; then the poems of 
one author, later the poetry of this author's period ; 
finally, the consideration of American poetry as a 
whole. Thus Bryant's composition, Thanatopsis^ is 
first to be studied, then, by means of successive ex- 
amination of other poems, a view is to be gained of 
the whole of Bryant's verse. After Bryant, with in- 
creasing attention to the comparison of an author's 



vi Preface. 

poems one with another, Whittier, Emerson, and the 
other poets of the same group may be studied in a 
similar way ; and the successive inductions collated 
and compared to show the poetical worth, as a group, 
of these " Classics." Around this group may then be 
viewed and with it compared, after similar but more 
brief special study, the other groups. At the close, 
therefore, of such an examination, the student should 
be prepared to arrive at a just estimate of American 
poetry in its intimate relations ! 

The teacher or the student, who wishes to make 
his study more thorough, may employ the volume 
not merely as a text^ but as a hand-book introductory 
to a careful private reading of the best books on the 
special fields of the subject. For this purpose, in 
connection with the introductory sketch to each 
principal poet, selected bibliographical references are 
given, directing attention to the works which have 
seemed to the editor the most effective for rendering 
each author's personality clear and vivid. Among 
such references, the editions recommended of the 
poems may be assumed as first in importance ; then 
the biographies of the poet ; lastly his prose works. 
In the bibliographies, which have been made pur- 
posely brief, magazine articles on the poets have 
not been given mention. Such articles may, in cer- 
tain cases, undoubtedly be of service, but dealing as 
they usually do with complex questions rather than 
with elementary matters, they need to be used, in the 
case of beginners, with extreme caution, and should 
hardly ever be regarded either as authoritative in 
themselves, or as worthy of complete acceptance for 



Preface, vii 

moulding the opinions of any student who has not 
finished the prehminary groundwork. Good cyclo- 
pedias, however, will often be found convenient for 
giving in a brief space the facts of an author's life. 
In general, the largest public libraries may of course, 
be used to advantage by students within reach of 
them. 

For showing, as a further step, the place of poetry 
as a part of American thought and literature, Rich- 
ardson's American Literature (G. P. Putnam's Sons) 
will be found a trustworthy guide. 

But even without the opportunities afforded by 
helps, like these, good work may be done by means 
of a private collection composed of the works indi- 
cated. More valuable, however, than anything else 
is careful choice and attention in respect to what is 
noble in the spirit of poetry itself. 

The contents have been divided, also for didactic 
reasons, into two parts ; and on the same ground, 
these parts are further subdivided. In Part I. 
authors who (with one exception) are no longer liv- 
ing are represented by several poems, and are con- 
sidered more fully than are the authors in Part II. 
In the first group, under Part I. are included the 
authors who, in the general opinion (perhaps in one 
or two instances in the opinion held by the editor), 
stand in the front rank ; in the second group are selec- 
tions from certain other prominent poets who died 
not long ago. Part II. is made up of poems by other 
authors, with brief notices prefixed in each case : a 
plan intended to prevent total ignorance on the part 
of the student of the writers of the great mass of 



viii Preface, 

American poetry, as well as to avoid pronouncing to 
an unnecessary degree upon the importance of the 
earlier authors partly forgotten or of contemporary 
poets who still have a future in which to produce. 

Of the subdivisions of Part II., the collection of 
war-ballads, grouped in subdivision II., explains it- 
self. Between subdivisions I., and III., the following 
tentative line of demarcation v/as drawn : poets born 
before 1820 were placed in subdivision I. ; those 
after 1820 in subdivision III. While such classifica- 
tion may appear somewhat arbitrary, it was adopted 
as a preliminary toward indicating that decided 
differences exist between early and later American 
verse. Most of these differences may be more easily 
felt than defined. One of the principal distinc- 
tions is perhaps that the former tended to rudeness, 
the latter to refinement of form. 

Some exceptions have been made. Certain authors, 
for instance, who were born before 1820 but who are 
still living or whose works are comparatively recent, 
are classed as " Contemporaries." 

In taking up the present book for study, the 
group " Classics," which is placed first, will be found 
as a rule the most convenient to begin upon ; but in 
this group it may be desirable to omit Poe and 
Very,* if the book is used for younger classes. At 
Swords Points may be taken, without previous 

* The reasons for the insertion of the poetry of Jones Very in the 
division entitled " Classics " are given in the separate introduction to 
Very's poems. That one purpose of the volume is to be useful to 
readers who are somewhat mature, makes the innovation no indis- 
cretion at most. My reservation, as in regard to Poe, would suggest 
the limitation of the experiment. 



Preface, ix 

study, for reading aloud, or for recitation. For 
purposes of literary study, however, this group as 
well as the remaining three can to advantage be 
preceded by " Classics " ; while the last groiip in Part 
I., and the last in Part II. had better not be studied 
critically in class except by the most mature. 

In the course of the study of American poetry, a 
treatise on the general subject of poetry, such as 
Bryant's Lectures on Poetry (found in the first volume 
of his prose writings), or Wordsworth's Preface to 
the Lyrical Ballads, can be read to advantage. 

After the native field has been thoroughly gone 
over, a modest estimate of the results secured may 
follow a reading of Leigh Hunt's discussion, '■^ An 
Answer to the Question ' What is Poetry? ' " A 
patriotic reader will do well to remember, that as Mr. 
Richardson has finely said, " Though thought cannot 
die, the life of books and of authors is of minor 
importance." 

Acknowledgment must be made to those pub- 
lishers or others whose courtesy in granting the use 
of copyrighted material has made this volume possi- 
ble. Those to whom I am indebted, and the volumes 
from which the respective works are taken (or the 
poems themselves), are as follows : 

Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.: 
T. B. Aldrich's Poems, 
Mrs. Elizabeth Akers Allen's The Silver Bridge and Other 

Poems^ 
Alice and Phoebe Gary's Poems, 
Miss Cone's Oberon and Puck, and The Ride to the Lady and 

Other Poems ^ 
Cranch's The Bird and the Bell, and Caliban, 



Preface. 



Emerson's Poems, and May-Day and Other Pieces^ 

Bret Harte's Poetical Works, 

Holmes's Poems, 

Lucy Larcom's Poems, 

Longfellow's Poems, 

Lowell's Poetical Works and Heartease and Rue 

Parson's Poems, 

Saxe's Poems, 

Sill's Poems, 

Stedman's Poems, 

Story's Poems, 

Taylor's Poems, 

Celia Thaxter's Poems, 

Edith Thomas's Lyrics and Sonnets, A New Year's Masque^ 

and Round the Year, ^ 
Thoreau's The Fishing Boy, 
Whit tier's Poetical Works, 
Woodberry's North-Shore Watch, and Other Poems, 

Messrs. D. Appleton & Co.: 
Bryant's Poems, 
Halleck's Poems, 

Songs and Ballads of the Civil War, 
Songs and Ballads of the Revolution. 

Messrs. A. C. Armstrong & Son : 
Poe's Poetical Works. ^ 

The Baltimore Publishing Co.: 
Ryan's The Conquered Banner. 

The Bowen-Merrill Co. , of Indianapolis : 
Riley's Old-Fashioned Roses. 

' In a few instances, as with this author, the titles of other volumes 
than those used for purposes of selection have been given. 

' I take pleasure in quoting from the letter of this firm : " We 
write to give you the permission you ask for, provided you will name 
us as publishers and sole owners of all of Poe's works, and so state 
our firm name and address. Yours respectfully, 

"A. C. Armstrong & Son, 

" New York." 



Preface, xi 

The Cassell Publishing Co.: 

Miss Gilmore's Pipes from the Prairies, 
O'Reilly's Poems.' 

Messrs. Effingham, Maynard & Co.: 
Willis's Poems. 

Messrs. Lee & Shepard : 

Mrs. Howe's Battle Hymn of the Republic, 

The J. B. Lippincott Co.: 
Read's Poetical Works. 

Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co.: 
Higginson's Madonna di San Sisto. 

The D. Lothrop Co.: 
Hayne's Poems, 
Scollard's With Reed and Lyre. 

Mr. George Gottsberger Peck : 
Mrs. Cooke's Poems. 

Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons : 

A^nerican War Ballads, compiled by G. C. Eggleston, 

Elaine and Dora Read Goodale's Apple Blossoms, In Berk- 
shire with the Wild Flowers, Verses from Sky Farm, All 
Round the Year, 

J. H. Morse's Summer-Haven Songs. 
Messrs. Roberts Brothers : 

Verses by (H. H.). Mrs. Jackson. 
Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons : 

Lanier's Poems, 

Lathrop's Dreams and Days. 
The F. a. Stokes Co. : 

Cheney's Wood-Blooms and Thistle Drift. 
Dr. R. M. BUCKE : 

Whitman's November Boughs and Leaves of Grass. 
Mrs. J. T. Fields : 

Fields's The Stars and Stripes, 

^ A volume of extracts from O'Reilly's Poems, entitled Watch- 
words, is published by the Cupples Co., Boston. 



xii Preface. 

Mr. C. H. (Joaquin) Miller : 

In Classic Shades^ 

Songs of Italy, 

Songs of the Sierras^ 

Songs of the Sunlands. 
Mr. YvoN Pike : 

Dixie and Every Year. 
Mr. R. H, Stoddard : 

The Country Life, 
Miss L. L. A. Very : 

Jones Very's Poems. 

Among those to whom, in the preparation of this 
volume, I have been indebted for personal kindness 
and advice, I desire to express my thanks to Mr. 
John Vance Cheney, to Mr. C. F. Holder, and to Mr. 
D. C. Lockwood ; to Prof. C. M. Gayley ; and es- C<&L. 
r^ pecially to Prof. H. A. Todd. To my former fellow- 

-^ teacher, Mr. Austin Lewis, I wish to make acknowl- 

edgment for valuable suggestions. Among the 
books consulted, I have to refer to the Appendix by 
Mr. Arthur Stedman to the Library of American 
Literature, to which I have frequently resorted for 
facts about authors' lives. 

In conclusion, I would crave the indulgence of 
those who, I am fully aware, know much more about 
poetry than I. They will see the defects of my per- 
formance, but they will also appreciate what difficul- 
ties have attended the task. If my volume may 
succeed in winning from them acceptance as a deserv- 
ing attempt in the right direction, I shall feel well 
repaid for the labor of its preparation. 

A. B. S. 

Paris, France, October, j8g4. 



■«..*, 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface v 

PART I. 

I— CLASSICS. 

General Introduction i 

William Cullen Bryant 

Introduction ........ 4 

Thanatopsis ........ 8 

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood . . .11 

To a Waterfowl ........ 12 

A Winter Piece ........ 13 

" Oh Fairest of the Rural Maids " .... 17 

Italy 18 

The Rivulet 20 

John Greenleaf Whittier 

Introduction 24 

The Fountain ........ 29 

To Faneuil Hall 33 

Rantoul 35 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Introduction ......... 39 

Give All to Love ........ 44 

Character ......... 45 

Heri, Hodie, Cras ....... 46 

xiii 



xiv Contents. 



PAlGE 

Edgar Allan Poe 

Introduction . . 47 

To the River 51 

Lenore . 52 

To Helen 53 

Jones Very 

Introduction 56 

The Silent 58 

The River 59 

Yourself ......... 59 

Nature .......... 60 

The Trees of Life 60 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

Introduction 62 

The Skeleton in Armor ....... 67 

My Lost Youth 73 

Dante 76 

James Russell Lowell 

Introduction 77 

Ode 82 

To Charles Eliot Norton— Agro Dolce . . . .88 

Auf Wiedersehen 89 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Introduction ......... 91 

On Lending a Punch-Bowl ...... 95 

The Last Leaf 98 

The Stethoscope Song 100 

II.— PRE-EMINENT LATER WRITERS. 

Walt Whitman 

Introduction ......... 107 

The First Dandelion 109 

The Ship Starting no 

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand? . . .110 



Contents. xv 

PAGE 

Sometimes With One I Love no 

Recorders, Ages Hence . . . . . .in 

To a Certain Civilian in 

Not Youth Pertains to Me 112 

I Saw Old General at Bay . . . . .112 

Delicate Cluster 113 

The Dying Veteran 113 

Yonnondio . . . . . . . , .114 

Aboard at a Ship's Helm .115 

Bayard Taylor 

Introduction 116 

The Poet in the East 118 

On Leaving California 120 

Sidney Lanier 

Introduction . . . . . . . . .122 

The Revenge of Hamish . . . . . .126 

Song of the Chattahoochee . . . . . .132 

Tampa Robins 134 

PART H. 

I.— FORERUNNERS. 

General Introduction 135 

Philip Freneau 139 

The Wild Honeysuckle 139 

Richard Henry Dana 141 

The Little Beach-Bird 141 

Fitz-Greene Halleck 143 

Burns .......... 143 

Joseph Rodman Drake 150 

The American Flag . . . . . .150 

James Gates Percival 153 

To a Butterfly 153 



XVI Contents. 

PAGE 

George Pope Morris 155 

Woodman, Spare that Tree ...... 155 

Nathaniel Parker Willis 157 

Idleness 158 

Charles Fenno Hoffman 161 

Monterey 161 

Albert Pike 163 

Every Year 163 

Frances Sargent Osgood 166 

The Dancing Girl 166 

William Ross Wallace 168 

Of Thine Own Country Sing 168 

John Godfrey Saxe 171 

Murillo and His Slave 171 

Henry David Thoreau 175 

The Fishing Boy 176 

Thomas Buchanan Read 177 

Song of the Alpine Guide 177 

Guy Humphreys McMaster 180 

Carmen Bellicosum 180 

John Antrobus 183 

The Cow-Boy . .183 

II— AT SWORDS' POINTS. 

Introduction 187 

Julia Ward Howe 188 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic 188 

James Thomas Fields igo 

The Stars and Stripes ....... 190 



Contents. xvii 

PAGE 

Albert Pike 192 

Dixie 192 

ROSSITER WORTHINGTON RAYMOND igS 

Cavalry Song ........ 195 

James Ryder Randall 197 

My Maryland 197 

Edmund Clarence Stedman 201 

Wanted — A Man 202 

James Sloan Gibbons 204 

Three Hundred Thousand More ..... 204 

George Henry Boker . . . . . . . 206 

The"VARUNA" 206 

Nathaniel Graham Shepherd 208 

Roll-Call 208 

Abraham Joseph Ryan 210 

The Conquered Banner 210 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 213 

Old Ironsides ........ 213 

III.— CONTEMPORARIES. 

General Introduction 215 

Christopher Pearse C ranch 219 

Stanzas 219 

William Wetmore Story 221 

The Three Singers 221 

Thomas William Parsons 225 

On a Bust of Dante 225 



xvili Contents. 

PAGE 

Alice Gary 228 

The Gray Swan 228 

Thomas Wentworth Higginson 231 

The Madonna di San Sisto 231 

Richard Henry Stoddard 233 

The Country Life ....... 233 

Lucy Larcom 236 

A Harebell 236 

Rose Terry Cooke 238 

Columbine 238 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich 240 

Wedded 240 

Elizabeth Akers Allen 242 

The Grass is Greener where she Sleeps . . .242 

Celia Laighton Thaxter 244 

The Minute-Guns 244 

Henry Timrod . . • 246 

The Cotton Boll 246 

Paul Hamilton Hayne 252 

Sonnet ......... 252 

A Little Saint 253 

Helen Hunt Jackson 255 

The Riviera 255 

Doubt . . 256 

Bret Harte 257 

The Angelus . • 257 

Edward Rowland Sill 259 

The Fool's Prayer , . 259 



Contents. xix 

PAGE 

Joaquin Miller . . . 262 

At Bethlehem 263 

In Yosemite Valley 264 

Charity 265 

Palatine Hall 267 

A Nubian Face on the Nile 268 

Charles Warren Stoddard ...:.. 269 

Tamalpais ......... 269 

John Vance Cheney 272 

The Way of It 272 

On the Ways of the Night 273 

James Herbert Morse 274 

Mazzini 274 

John Boyle O'Reilly 276 

Three Graves 276 

Richard Watson Gilder 279 

Oh, Love is not a Summer Mood .... 279 

George Parsons Lathrop 281 

Strike Hands, Young Men ! 281 

James Whitcomb Riley . . .... 284 

The Orchard Lands of Long Ago .... 284 

Our Kind of a Man 285 

Edith Matilda Thomas 287 

Sea Bird and Land Bird 287 

George Edward Woodberry 290 

Our First Century 291 

To Leo XIII 291 

Helen Gray Cone 292 

The Spring Beauties 292 

An Invocation in a Library ...... 293 



XX Contents. 

PAGE 

Clinton Scollard 295 

The Hunter 295 

The Angler 297 

Minnie Gilmore 299 

The Deserted Chapel 299 

Dora Read Goodale 301 

A-Berrying 301 

Index of First Lines 303 

General Index 307 




AMERICAN SONG 



AMERICAN SONG. 



PART I. 



I. Classics. 



The works of writers whose thoughts, whose words, 
and whose memories are vital for successive genera- 
tions, are those to whom is permitted the name of 
Classics. It was by writers of this class that Ameri- 
can literature, in the deeper sense of the term, was 
begun ; literature which, intelligently studied, should 
form an important part of the education of every 
American boy and girl.^ 

This group, distinguished for breadth both of cul- 
ture and of character, was not limited, in the source 
of its inspiration, to America. Among the in- 
fluences due to the poetry of foreign lands, the 
principal influence came from that vigorous poetry 
of England which sprang up about the beginning of 
the nineteenth century. An account, for purposes 
of brief study, of the origin of this American poetry, 

' A perfect American culture will include also the prose works of 
Emerson and Hawthorne. 

I 



American Song, 



need, therefore, not go back to the epoch of the first 
settlements ; but requires only to mention the adop- 
tion of style from English literature and from other 
literatures, and may then proceed to mark the poetic 
achievements, under American conditions, according 
to the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty. 

From this point of view, if we include the field of 
literature as a whole, the first man of letters in America 
was Washington Irving. A man of taste and feeling, 
who was familiar with the social conditions of both 
sides of the Atlantic, Irving prepared the way for the 
wide development of American literature not only 
through his expression of cosmopoKtan ideas, but 
also by awakening a public sentiment for literature 
of a higher kind than had been before realized ; and 
thus more easily, after Irving, arose a number of 
writers, who, in prose or poetry, gave themselves 
generously to their art. 

Before this general result, however, and only a 
little after the beginning of Irving's career, the soli- 
tary figure of Bryant had stood forth as a poet worthy 
of high honor as a writer of English verse. It may 
be noted in passing that American literature in Bryant 
goes back, therefore, a score of years before Tennyson 
had printed a line, and has, at the present time, ac- 
cordingly, an element of age as well as of apparent 
permanence. 

In the decades following Bryant's first publication, 
literature as a profession being more favored through 
the springing up in the community of an interest in 
books of an aesthetic description, the poetic product 
became larger and richer. In purpose, as in character. 



Classics. 3 

this poetry was somewhat varied. Sometimes, as in 
the verses of Whittier and Lowell, the cause of anti- 
slavery was contended for; with other writers, such 
as Longfellow and Poe, the poetry appealed chiefly 
to the imagination. 

The group as a whole is the part of American 
poetry, as has been said, which should at the present 
time be most studied. Forerunners of it are of less 
importance as literature, and later verse is the work 
of writers of to-day, who, being contemporary and 
having the possibility of a poetic future, cannot fairly 
be criticised in the same way as those whose work 
stands as done. 

One certain word of praise may be passed on the 
group now under consideration. In general, per- 
haps, they did not write too much ; what they did 
write they wrote as well as they could. In their 
work, also, in keeping and in enlarging both poetic 
and spiritual laws, they are in this country historic. 




WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 



William Cullen Bryant was born November 3, 
1794, at Cummington, a village situated beautifully 
among the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. From 
the Bryant as well as from the maternal side, he in- 
herited strong poetical tastes. His father owning a 
library of seven hundred volumes, and having excel- 
lent literary judgment, Cullen, as he was called, was 
carefully trained in writing verse. At first he was 
taught to imitate the English poets of the eighteenth 
century, especially Pope ; later he studied Words- 
worth, from whom he learned to observe nature and 
to think poetically. Not long after acquiring ac- 
quaintance with the Lyrical Ballads ^ and with the 
Greek poets, Bryant, who had attended college a 
single year, wrote his first draft of Thanatopsis. 

The fundamental conception of the poem — the 
earth as a vast sepulchre — occurred to him during a 
ramble in the summer of 1811. We are fortunate in 
knowing something of its process of creation. Re- 
flecting how all who live, himself included, must die, 
he began in the middle of a line : 

^ By Wordsworth and Coleridge. 
4 



Bryant. 



" Yet a few days, and thee 
The all-beholding sun shall see no more 
In all his course ; " 

and ended with the words : 

'' And make their bed with thee." 

He afterward added his cheerful introduction and 
the majestic, impressive conclusion/ A piece some- 
what similar. The Inscription for the Entrance to a 
Wood, written four years later, and published origi- 
nally under the title of A Fragment, proclaimed for 
the first time in America* the quiet happiness of 
nature as open and communicable to men. 

To a Waterfowl, in the same year, is a contempla- 
tion far more sublime and profound in conception.^ 
From the self-consciousness of Thanatopsis and the 
Inscription, the poet attains, at the same time with 
higher art, a wider, truer view. His faith, as he says 
in the first stanza, has brought him peace. 

Of similar calmness, A Winter -Piece!' in 1820, con- 
trasting with the summer scenes of the Inscription, 
delicately suggests sights minutely observed and 
adorned richly with fancy. 

Inspired also in 1820, Oh, Fairest of the Rural 
Maids, exquisitely ideal in its borrowings from na- 
ture, is a noble tribute to Bryant's lady-love. How 

' A good example of the process of imaginative conception. 

' It was written before the latter part of Thanatopsis. 

^ See the account of the composition of this poem in Godwin's Life 
of Bryant. 

* Cf. parts of Whittier's Snow-Boiuid and Lowell's Visioti of Sir 
Launfal^ for similar description of winter scenes. 



American Song. 



precious she was to him after marriage is told in the 
later poems, The Future Life and The Life That Is ; 
how grief-stricken he was at her death is seen in 
October^ 1866. Other poems, The Hymn to Deaths 

To , The Death of the Flowers^ and The Past, 

contain memories of his father and of his sister. 

The Rivulet, dated Cummington, 1823, goes to make 
up, like the Inscription, the surroundings of Bryant's 
home; and is characterized by a tone of wise ex- 
perience joined to sweet lyric freshness/ Written 
near the close of Bryant's ten years' practice of the 
law, the poem well represents that period of his 
poetic production : a time when his heart was given 
to poetry especially, and when his imagination was 
constantly expanding.^ 

In 1827, Bryant commenced his editorial duties 
with The Evening Post^ and continued them for the 
remainder of his life. The Battle-field, a poem in 
great degree personal, expresses the political earnest- 
ness underlying Bryant's chief object for the next 
thirty-five years. Still, he increased largely his 
poetic resource and variety. The Damsel of Peru, 
for instance, shows invention ; and the Two Graves,^ 
an individuality unique in theme and in details. 

* Note also, on the artistic side, the melody of the poem. 

^ Not, however, with the vigor that Longfellow's was wont. 

2 As editor of The Evening Post, Bryant's services to journalism 
were no less wise and fearless than distinguished. See extracts in 
Godwin's Life and elsewhere. The matter and the manner of his 
editorials were weighty and matchless, 

"* Cf. here, and in connection v/ith Thanatopsis, the fact that oppo- 
site Bryant's birthplace, on the upper side of the road, was a cemetery. 
The Graves were not here, however, but remote, in an obscure spot. 



Bryant. 



Again, the unpretentious poem, The Fringed Gentian^ 
reflects the modest charm of the flower, and has a 
distinctive elegance of style. More difflcult in per- 
formance, Catterskill Falls is aerially light in fancy. 
Poems of a larger horizon are the imaginative 
Hunter's Vision and The Prairies ; with breadth, 
height is combined in the two kindred pieces. The 
Firmament and When the Firmament Quivers with 
Daylight's Young Beam. Of the rest, O Mother of a 
Mighty Race blends imagination with patriotic pride ; 
A Hymn of the Sea is powerfully conceived ; and 
spiritual truth infuses The Land of Dreams and The 
Conqueror s Grave. 

Thirty Poems^ in Bryant's seventieth year, is re- 
markable chiefly for containing political verse of 
vigor, together with gentler poems dealing with the 
mysterious region of fairy-land. 

Among the pieces of this period, Italy exhibits 
Bryant's reach of sympathy at its widest. He was 
especially interested in Italian independence, and 
this confident burst of prophecy was followed about 
a decade later by his address on the attainment of 
Italian unity. Among poems on America, Not Yet 
is admirable for its energy and firmness ; The Death 
of Slavery^ full of passion and sublimity. 

Of his lighter, more graceful product, the unfinished 
poem, A Tale of Cloudland, suggests an intention on 
his part of an extended treatment of the supernatural. 
Sella, a simple idyl, strange and wonderful, and Little 
People of the Snow are artistic stories for children ; 
the former tinged with classic as well as modern color, 
the latter much resembling the German folk-lore. 



8 American Song, 

A version of the fifth book of the Odyssey included 
in Thirty Poems led Bryant to undertake the whole 
of the Odyssey and the Iliad. As an English trans- 
lation, Bryant's Homer is one of the best. 

Another of the collection, Waiting by the Gate^ 
portrays the grand equanimity of the sage as he 
muses on the approach of death. A still more uni- 
versal song, almost terrible in its bold dealing with 
the fate of mankind, and irresistible in its sweep, is 
The Flood of Years, one of Bryant's last. Not long 
after this came his death, which occurred in New 
York, June 12, 1878. 

special references : Parke Godwin's editions of Bryant's Poems 
and of his Prose Writings, and Godwin's Life of Bryant — all pub- 
lished by Appleton. 



THANATOPSIS. 

To him who in the love of nature holds 
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 
A various language ; for his gayer hours 
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides 
Into his darker musings, with a mild 
And healing sympathy, that steals away 
Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 
Over thy spirit, and sad images 
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ; — 



Bryant. 



Go forth, under the open sky, and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air, — 

Comes a still voice. — Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground. 

Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again. 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix forever with the elements. 

To be a brother to the insensible rock 

And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain 

Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone — nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good, 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 

All in one mighty sepulchre. — The hills 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun, — the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods — rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all, 

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste, — 

Are but the solemn decorations all 

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven. 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death, 



lo American Song, 



Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread 

The globe are but a handful to the tribes 

That slumber in its bosom. — Take the wings 

Of morning — and the Barcan ^ desert pierce, 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods 

Where rolls the Oregon,^ and hears no sound, 

Save his own dashings — yet — the dead are there ; 

And millions in those solitudes, since first 

The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. 

So shalt thou rest — and what if thou withdraw 

Unheeded by the living — and no friend 

Take note of thy departure ? All that breathe 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care 

Plod on, and each one as before will chase 

His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men. 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes 

In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, 

And the sweet babe, and the gray-headed man, — 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side. 

By those, who in their turn shall follow them. 

So live that when thy summons comes to join 

The innumerable caravan, that moves 

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take 

His chamber in the silent halls of death. 

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night. 



^ Barca, a maritime region of North Africa, forming the eastern 
division of Tripoli. 

2 Oregon^ the Columbia River, vi^hich lies partly in Oregon. 



Bryant, 1 1 



Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 



INSCRIPTION FOR THE ENTRANCE TO 
A WOOD. 

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs 

No school of long experience, that the world 

Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen 

Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares, 

To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood 

And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade 

Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze 

That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm 

To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here 

Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men 

And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse 

Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth, 

But not in vengeance. God hath yoked to Guilt 

Her pale tormentor, Misery. Hence, these shades 

Are still the abodes of gladness ; the thick roof 

Of green and stirring branches is alive 

And musical with birds, that sing and sport 

In wantonness of spirit ; while below. 

The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect. 

Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade 

Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam 

That waked them into life. Even the green trees 

Partake the deep contentment ; as they bend 

To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky 

Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene. 



12 American Song. 

Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy 

Existence, than the winged plunderer 

That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves, 

And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees 

That lead from knoll to knoll a causey rude 

Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots, 

With all the earth upon them, twisting high, 

Breathe fixed tranquillity. The rivulet 

Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed 

Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, 

Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice 

In its own being. Softly tread the marge, 

Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren 

That dips her bill in water. The cool wind. 

That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee, 

Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass 

Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace. 

TO A WATERFOWL. 

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, 
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue 

Thy solitary way ? 

Vainly the fowler's eye 
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong. 
As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, 

Thy figure floats along. 

Seek'st thou the plashy brink 
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, 
Or where the rocky billows rise and sink 

On the chafed ocean side ? 



Bryant. n 

There is a Power whose care 
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, — 
The desert and illimitable air, — 

Lone wandering, but not lost. 

All day thy wings have fanned, 
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere, 
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, 

Though the dark night is near. 

And soon that toil shall end ; 
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest. 
And scream among thy fellows ; reeds shall bend, 

Soon o'er thy sheltered nest. 

Thou 'rt gone, the abyss of heaven 
Hath swallowed up thy form ; yet, on my heart 
Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, 

And shall not soon depart. 

He who, from zone to zone, 
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight. 
In the long way that I must tread alone 

Will lead my steps aright. 

A WINTER PIECE. 

The time has been that these wild solitudes, 
Yet beautiful as wild, were trod by me 
Oftener than now ; and when the ills of life 
Had chafed my spirit — when the unsteady pulse 
Beat with strange flutterings — I would wander forth 
And seek the woods. The sunshine on my path 
Was to me as a friend. The swelling hills. 



T4 American Song. 

The quiet dells retiring far between, 

With gentle invitation to explore 

Their windings, were a calm society 

That talked with me and soothed me. Then the chant 

Of birds, and chime of brooks, and soft caress 

Of the fresh sylvan air, made me forget 

The thoughts that broke my peace, and I began 

To gather simples by the fountain's brink. 

And lose myself in day-dreams. While I stood 

In Nature's loneliness, I was with one 

With whom I early grew familiar, one 

Who never had a frown for me, whose voice 

Never rebuked me for the hours I stole 

From cares I loved not, but of which the world 

Deems highest, to converse with her. When shrieked 

The bleak November winds, and smote the woods. 

And the brown fields were herbless, and the shades, 

That met above the merry rivulet, 

Were spoiled, I sought, I loved them still ; they seemed 

Like old companions in adversity. 

Still there was beauty in my walks ; the brook. 

Bordered with sparkling frost-work, was as gay 

As with its fringe of summer flowers. Afar, 

The village with its spires, the path of streams, 

And dim receding valleys, hid before 

By interposing trees, lay visible 

Through the bare grove, and my familiar haunts 

Seemed new to me. Nor was I slow to come 

Among them, when the clouds, from their still skirts, 

Had shaken down on earth the feathery snow, 

And all was white. The pure keen air abroad, 

Albeit it breathed no scent of herb, nor heard 

Love-call of bird nor merry hum of bee. 



Bryant. is 



Was not the air of death. Bright mosses crept 
Over the spotted trunks, and the close buds, 
That lay along the boughs, instinct with life, 
Patient, and waiting the soft breath of Spring, 
Feared not the piercing spirit of the North. 
The snow-bird twittered on the beechen bough, 
And 'neath the hemlock, whose thick branches bent 
Beneath its bright cold burden, and kept dry 
A circle on the earth, of withered leaves. 
The partridge found a shelter. Through the snow 
The rabbit sprang away. The lighter track 
Of fox, and the raccoon's broad path were there, 
Crossing each other. From his hollow tree. 
The squirrel was abroad, gathering the nuts 
Just fallen, that asked the winter cold and sway 
Of winter blast, to shake them from their hold. 

But winter has yet brighter scenes, — he boasts 
Splendors beyond what gorgeous Summer knows ; 
Or Autumn, with his many fruits, and woods 
All flushed with many hues. Come, when the rains 
Have glazed the snow, and clothed the trees with ice ; 
While the slant sun of February pours 
Into the bowers a flood of light. Approach ! 
The incrusted surface shall upbear thy steps. 
And the broad arching portals of the grove 
Welcome thy entering. Look ! the massy trunks 
Are cased in the pure crystal ; each light spray. 
Nodding and tinkling in the breath of heaven. 
Is studded with its trembling water-drops, 
That stream with rainbow radiance as they move. 
But round the parent stem the long low boughs 
Bend, in a glittering ring, and arbors hide 
The glassy floor. Oh ! you might deem the spot 



1 6 American Song, 

The spacious cavern of some virgin mine, 

Deep in the womb of earth — where the gems grow, 

And diamonds put forth radiant rods and bud 

With amethyst and topaz — and the place 

Lit up, most royally, with the pure beam 

That dwells in them. Or happily the vast hall 

Of fairy palace, that outlasts the night, 

And fades not in the glory of the sun ; 

Where crystal columns send forth slender shafts 

And crossing arches ; and fantastic aisles 

Wind from the sight in brightness, and are lost 

Among the crowded pillars. Raise thine eye, — 

Thou seest no cavern roof, no palace vault ; 

There the blue sky and the white drifting cloud 

Look in. Again, the wildered fancy dreams 

Of spouting fountains, frozen as they rose. 

And fixed, with all their branching jets, in air 

And all their sluices sealed. All, all is light ; 

Light without shade. But all shall pass away 

With the next sun. From numberless vast trunks, 

Loosened, the crashing ice shall make a sound 

Like the far roar of rivers, and the eve 

Shall close o'er the brown woods as it was wont. 

And it is pleasant, when the noisy streams 

Are just set free, and milder suns melt off 

The plashy snow, save only the firm drift 

In the deep glen or the close shade of pines,— 

'T is pleasant to behold the wreaths of smoke 

Roll up among the maples of the hill. 

Where the shrill sound of youthful voices wakes 

The shriller echo, as the clear pure lymph. 

That from the wounded trees, in twinkling drops. 

Falls 'mid the golden brightness of the morn. 



Bryant, 17 



Is gathered in with brimming pails, and oft, 
Wielded by sturdy hands, the stroke of axe 
Makes the woods ring. Along the quiet air, 
Come and float calmly off the soft light clouds, 
Such as you see in summer, and the winds 
Scarce stir the branches. Lodged in sunny cleft, 
Where the cold breezes come not, blooms alone 
The little wind-flower, whose just opened eye 
Is blue as the spring heaven it gazes at — 
Startling the loiterer in the naked groves 
With unexpected beauty, for the time 
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar. 
And ere it comes, the encountering winds shall oft 
Muster their wrath again, and rapid clouds 
Shade heaven, and bounding on the frozen earth 
Shall fall their volleyed stores, rounded like hail. 
And white like snow, and the loud North ^ again 
Shall buffet the vexed forests in his rage. 



" OH FAIREST OF THE RURAL MAIDS.' 

Oh fairest of the rural maids ! 
Thy birth was in the forest shades ; 
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky. 
Were all that met thy infant eye. 



Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child. 
Were ever in the sylvan wild ; 
And all the beauty of the place 
Is in thy heart and on thy face. 

' North, the north wind. 



i8 American Song, 

The twilight of the trees and rocks 
Is in the light shade of thy locks ; 
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves 
Its playful way among the leaves. 

Thy eyes are springs, in whose serene 
And silent waters heaven is seen ; 
Their lashes are the herbs that look 
On their young figures in the brook. 

The forest depths, by foot unpressed, 
Are not more sinless than thy breast ; 
The holy peace that fills the air 
Of those calm solitudes, is there. 



ITALY. 

Voices from the mountain speak ; 

Apennines to Alps reply ; 
Vale to vale and peak to peak 
Toss an old-remembered cry : 
" Italy 

Shall be free ! " 
Such the mighty shout that fills 
All the passes of the hills. 

All the old Italian lakes 

Quiver at that quickening word 
Como with a thrill awakes ; 

Garda to her depths is stirred ; 
'Mid the steeps 
Where he sleeps. 
Dreaming of the elder years, 
Startled Thrasymenus hears. 



Bryant. 19 

Sweeping Arno, swelling Po, 

Murmur freedom to their meads. 
Tiber swift and Liris slov/ 

Send strange whispers from their reeds 
'' Italy 

Shall be free," 
Sing the glittering brooks that slide, 
Toward the sea, from Etna's side. 

Long ago was Gracchus slain ; 

Brutus perished long ago ; 
Yet the living roots remain 

Whence the roots of greatness grow. 
Yet again 
God-like men, 
Sprung from that heroic stem, 
Call the land to rise with them. 

They who haunt the swarming street, 
They who chase the mountain boar, 
Or, where cliff and billow meet, 
Prune the vine, or pull the oar, 
With a stroke 

Break their yoke ; "y 

Slaves but yester-eve were they — 
Freemen with the dawning day. 

Looking in his children's eyes, 

While his own with gladness flash. 
These," the Umbrian father cries, 
" Ne'er shall crouch beneath the lash ! 
These shall ne'er 
Brook to wear 
Chains whose cruel links are twined 
Round the crushed and withering mind." 



1__ 



20 American Song, 

Monarchs ! ye whose armies stand 

Harnessed for the battle-field ; 
Pause, and from the lifted hand 
Drop the bolts of war ye wield. 
Stand aloof 
While the proof 
Of the people's might is given ; 
Leave their kings to them and heaven. 

Stand aloof and see the oppressed 

Chase the oppressor, pale with fear, 
As the fresh winds of the west 
Blow the misty valleys clear. 
Stand and see 
Italy 
Cast the gyves she wears no more 
To the gulfs that steep her shore. 

THE RIVULET. 

This little rill that, from the springs 
Of yonder grove, its current brings, 
Plays on the slope awhile, and then 
Goes prattling into groves again. 
Oft to its warbling waters drew 
My little feet, when life was new. 
When woods in early green were dressed, 
And from the chambers of the west 
The warm breezes, travelling out, 
Breathed the new scent of flowers about, 
My truant steps from home would stray, 
Upon its grassy side to play, 
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn, 
And crop the violet on its brim. 



Bryant. 21 



With blooming cheek and open brow, 
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou. 

And when the days of boyhood came, 
And I had grown in love with fame, 
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried 
My first rude numbers by thy side. 
Words cannot tell how bright and gay 
The scenes of life before me lay. 
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak 
Would bring the blood into my cheek, 
Passed o'er me ; and I wrote, on high, 
A name I deemed should never die. 

Years change thee not. Upon yon hill 
The tall old maples, verdant still, 
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay, 
How sv/ift the years have passed away, 
Since first, a child, and half afraid, 
I wandered in the forest shade. 
Thou, ever joyous rivulet. 
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet ; 
And sporting with the sands that pave 
The windings of thy silver wave, 
And dancing to thy own wild chime. 
Thou laughest at the lapse of time. 
The same sweet sounds are in my ear 
My early childhood loved to hear ; 
As pure thy limpid waters run. 
As bright they sparkle to the sun ; 
As fresh and thick the bending ranks 
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks ; 
The violet there, in soft May dew. 
Comes up, as modest and as blue ; 



22 American Song, 

As green amid thy current's stress, 
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress ; 
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen, 
Still chirps as merrily as then. 

Thou changest not — but I am changed, 
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged ; 
And the grave stranger, come to see 
The play-place of his infancy. 
Has scarce a single trace of him 
Who sported once upon thy brim. 
The visions of my youth are past — 
Too bright, too beautiful to last. 
I 've tried the world — it wears no more 
The coloring of romance it wore. 
Yet well has nature kept the truth 
She promised to my earliest youth. 
The radiant beauty shed abroad 
On all the glorious works of God, 
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye, 
Each charm it wore in days gone by. 

A few brief years shall pass away, 
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray. 
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold 
My ashes in the embracing mould 
(If haply the dark will of fate 
Indulge my life so long a date). 
May come for the last time to look 
Upon my childhood's favorite brook. 
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam 
The sparkle of thy dancing stream ; 
And faintly on my ear shall fall. 
Thy prattling current's merry call ; 



Bryant. 23 



Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright 
As when thou met'st my infant sight. 

And I shall sleep — and on thy side, 

As ages after ages glide, 

Children their early sports shall try, 

And pass to hoary age and die. 

But thou, unchanged from year to year, 

Gayly shalt play and glitter here ; 

Amid young flowers and tender grass 

Thy endless infancy shall pass ; 

And, singing down thy narrow glen, 

Shalt mock the fading race of men. 




JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER. 



Whittier is not only interesting, like Bryant, fcr 
poems which belong to a world of imagination and 
fancy apart from actual life, but for verse which 
urges political reform. Throughout the history of 
the slavery conflict, he wrote passionately, arousing 
his countrymen to convictions of their responsibility. 

On the 1 2th of December, 1807, John Greenleaf 
Whittier was born in a farm-house near Haverhill, 
Essex County, Massachusetts. His first poetical 
inspiration, if we except the Bible, came from Burns, 
whom he read at fourteen and imitated for a time. 
Having gained at twenty-one a brief, hard-earned 
schooling at Phillips Academy, Andover, and having 
studied the traditions of a native region rich in living 
legends, he was led by contemplation of English 
poets, especially Scott, to the invention of Mogg 
Megone, a narrative poem which was based on early 
New England lore, and which may be taken as rep- 
resenting the poet's transition to originality. 

From the date of Mogg Megone until 1850 he 
wrote a number of exquisite short poems, quiet and 
gentle in tone, unpretentious and various in subject, 
and manifesting successive stages of growth in power 

24 



Whittier. 25 

of intellect and of expression. The Fountain, in 
1837, has the very spirit of Whittier's native hills 
and valleys. A cooling breeze seems to blow around 
and about the poet's language, and the whole picture 
is fresh and genuine. Another poem of nature, 
Hampton Beach, is vivid in sketching, intense in ab- 
straction, and profound in spiritual meditation. 
More modest in form but of equal power is The Well 
of Loch Maree. Among poems of human associa- 
tions, the innocent tenderness in Memories between 
the person and himself is to Whittier a remembrance 
both pleasant and precious. Raphael, artistic in form 
and in judgment, has a high compass of thought and 
of imagination. Of similar elevation. To my Friend 
on the Death of his Sister, is a model in its apprecia- 
tion and delicacy of condolence. Equally true and 
perfect in sincerity and conscious pride is Our State, 
Whittier meanwhile began to sing in sterner strains. 
Against slavery, A Summons appealed to latent man- 
liness, proclaiming the shame of cowardly inaction. 
Similar but more forcible, To Faneuil Hall, an un- 
noticed poem among Whittier's best, combines vigor 
of purpose with thorough scorn and tearful pathos. 
There is in it the ring of the voice and the stamp of 
the foot. Whittier's commanding nature was never 
more roused than in this poem, and he put into it 
all his imperious spirit. In Brown of Ossawatomie, 
on the other hand, is the gentler hope and trust in a 
peaceful solution of the nation's problem. A similar 
piece, Fill Feste Burg^ shows Whitter's inspired hope 
and his patient watching during the war. The Song 
^ Ein' Feste Burg, a sure stronghold. 



26 American Song, 

of the Negro Boatmen^ in 1862, common, simple, and 
in dialect, images the joy of jubilee and the new 
confidence imparted to the slaves by freedom. 
Written about the same time. What the Birds Said 
has its poetic element surpassed by its spiritual light 
of promise. All this group have passion ; they come 
from a whole nature on fire. Some pieces of the 
period are fiercer than is usually regarded compatible 
with literary perfection ; others have the apparent 
fault of prosiness. But on the whole they have 
claims to estimation as poems of deep content and 
uncontrived expression ; they are slightly, if at all, 
defective on the artistic side ; and far from being 
marred by haste or impulsiveness, their truth of in- 
tuition, strength of conception, and courage of utter- 
ance are often supported by cogent reasoning. 

Whittier's power of intellect is still more evident 
in his ideal portraits ; for no ordinary mind could 
have treated successfully even the fall of Webster. 
The method in Ichabod is unique ; the unflinching 
exposure, with the contrast of the orator's former 
glory, is far more severe than unmixed condemnation. 
Rantoul, a panegyric poem written in 1853, is typical 
of Whittier's commemoration of friends faithful to 
the cause he revered. The poem itself is proud and 
stately, chaste in simplicity, and one of the noblest 
songs of America. Its figure is haloed with spiritual 
worth. What matter if, in comparison with this 
ideal shape, the historic original were really as great 
or not ? The important thing to notice is that there 
is great thought and great feeling in Whittier. The 
lines to Charles Summer again are remarkable for 



Whittier, 27 

their grand imagery. Here as before, Whittier is 
like a painter worshipping the old saints. Better 
than any of his contemporaries, he could perceive 
virtue in the heroes of his generation. 

Whittier has also uttered strong religious convic- 
tions. My Soul and / is a candid self-inquiry of 
motives. The Wish of To-Day acknowledges the 
resignation of age. The Meeting is very wise in its 
criticism of a superficial philosophy. Yet his re- 
ligious poems are not poems of argument but poems 
of faith ; faith in nature, faith in the present, faith 
in his fellows, faith in God. 

Whittier gave most attention to literary form 
after the year 1850. A particular charm of style 
often accompanies henceforth each poem. Almost 
simultaneously shine the radiance of Eva and the 
gleam of romance of MaudMuller. The latter with 
the especially swift and direct Barbara Frietchie and 
the somewhat coarser Skipper Iresons Ride have 
kept their places as the best executed by Whittier 
in ballad form, in which he excelled. Of the same 
class, a strange story, Norumbega, is individually 
told. Side by side with ballads flowed from his pen 
touching reminiscences of the poet's childhood. 
Noteworthy in The Barefoot Boy are its painting and 
emotion at the beginning and end. Telling the Bees 
is quaintly and skilfully related ; My Playmate is half 
regretful for a lost love of boyhood ; and the 
later poem. In School Days, a mirror of guileless feel- 
ing, is still another of a group unsurpassed in artless- 
ness. The narrative is blended with the personal 
element in Snow-Bound and in The Tent on the Beach. 



28 American Song, 

Snow-Bound, one of the longest successful American 
poems, appeals to the sentiment of New England 
by its imagination of her life of seventy years ago. 
The Tent on the Beach has, among other merits, an 
introduction charmingly dreamy, with attractive 
sketches of the men of letters who are the inter- 
locutors. 

The two foregoing narratives are the works of 
Whittier fullest of color and of poetic art, and 
(especially Snow-Bound^ the tasks of his prime. The 
pieces subsequent, however, to 1868 are also true and 
strong ; and this last period of his perhaps generally 
excels all the others in simplicity of style. The 
verses written in 1871 on Chicago show that matters 
even of recent interest may be poetical ; How the 
Women Went from Dover, though realistic, is sympa- 
thetic ; and Abrani Morrison describes a canny 
figure, homely and picturesque. 

Reality of outward life and the great spiritual 
facts of his country and time are the air and the sun- 
shine in which Whittier grew. In his descriptive 
verse, call the scenes of his pages local if we will, 
they possess a generous variety of interest from their 
significance as relating to New England, that region 
to which America owes so much. Whittier's moral 
aim, too, if specialized, bears the rich fruits of con- 
centration. To the virtuous who read him carefully 
he is neither provincial nor hard to understand. That 
his works are not more fully esteemed is, I believe, 
because of the reverence for his character. Men, 
seeing that the man is superior to his work, do not 
perceive the sterling qualities which his poetry itself 



Whittier, 29 

has. They forget that virtue and art at their high- 
est points partake each of the other. As Whittier's 
heart and action were, so is his poetry. We may 
attend too much sometimes to writers as well as 
doers seeking to cultivate in us exotic refine- 
ments which are false to our nature. Whittier, 
not only in his practical record but in his works, tells 
us what active and healthful virtue really is. 

Special reference : Whittier's Poetical Works ^ edition of 1888, 
with notes by the author. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 

THE FOUNTAIN. 

Traveller ! on thy journey toiling 

By the swift Powow,^ 
With the summer sunshine falling 

On thy heated brow, 
Listen, while all else is still, 
To the brooklet from the hill. 

Wild and sweet the flowers are blowing 

By that streamlet's side, 
And a greener verdure showing. 

Where its waters glide, 
Down the hill-slope murmuring on, 
Over root and mossy stone. 

Where yon oak his broad arms flingeth 

O'er the sloping hill. 
Beautiful and freshly springeth 

That soft-flowing rill, 

^ Fowow, a tributary of the Merrimack River. 



30 American Song. 

Through its dark roots wreathed and bare, 
Gushing up to sun and air. 

Brighter waters sparkled never 

In that magic well, 
Of whose gift of life forever 

Ancient legends tell, 
In the lonely desert wasted, 
And by mortal lip untasted. 

Waters which the proud Castilian * 

Sought with longing eyes. 
Underneath the bright pavilion 

Of the Indian skies, 
Where his forest pathway lay 
Through the blooms of Florida. 

Years ago a lonely stranger, 

With the dusky brow 
Of the outcast forest-ranger. 

Crossed the swift Powow, 
And betook him to the rill, 
And the oak upon the hill. 

O'er his face of moody sadness 

For an instant shone 
Something like a gleam of gladness, 

As he stooped him down 
To the fountain's grassy side 
And his eager thirst supplied. 



^ The proud Castilian. " De Soto in the sixteenth century pene- 
trated into the wilds of a new world in search of gold and the 
fountain of perpetual youth." 



Whittier. 31 



With the oak its shadows throwing 

O'er his mossy seat, 
And the cool sweet waters flowing 

Softly at his feet, 
Closely by the fountain's rim 
That lone Indian seated him. 

Autumn's earliest frost had given 

To the woods below 
Hues of beauty, such as heaven 

Lendeth to its bow ; 
And the soft breeze from the west 
Scarcely broke their dreamy rest. 

Far behind was Ocean striving 

With its chains of sand ; 
Southward sunny glimpses giving, 

'Twixt the swells of land, 
Of its calm and silvery track, 
Rolled the tranquil Merrimack. 

Over village, wood, and meadow 

Gazed that stranger man 
Sadly, till the twilight shadow 

Over all things ran. 
Save where spire and westward pane 
Flashed the sunset back again. 

Gazing thus upon the dwelling 

Of his warrior sires. 
Where no lingering trace was telling 

Of their wigwam fires, 
Who the gloomy thoughts might know 
Of that wandering child of woe ? 



32 American Song. 

Naked lay, in sunshine glowing, 
Hills that once had stood 

Down their sides the shadows throwing 
Of a mighty wood, 

Where the deer his covert kept, 

And the eagle's pinion swept ! 

Where the birch canoe had glided 

Down the swift Powow, 
Dark and gloomy bridges strided 

Those clear waters now ; 
And where once the beaver swam 
Jarred the wheel and frowned the dam. 

For the wood-bird's merry singing, 

And the hunter's cheer, 
Iron clang and hammer's ringing 

Smote upon his ear ; 
And the thick and sullen smoke 
From the blackened forges broke. 

Could it be his fathers ever 

Loved to linger here ? 
These bare hills, this conquer'd river,— 

Could they hold them dear, 
With their native loveliness 
Tamed and tortured into this ? 

Sadly as the shades of even 

Gathered o'er the hill. 
While the western half of heaven 

Blushed with sunset still. 
From the fountain's mossy seat 
Turned the Indian's weary feet. 



Whittier. ii 



Year on year hath flown forever, 

But he came no more 
To the hillside or the river 

Where he came before. 
But the villager can tell 
Of that strange man's visit well. 

And the merry children, laden 
With their fruits or flowers, — 

Roving boy and laughing maiden, 
In their school-day hours, 

Love the simple tale to tell 

Of the Indian and his well. 



TO FANEUIL HALL.^ 

1844. 

Men ! if manhood still ye claim. 

If the Northern pulse can thrill, 
Roused by wrong or stung by shame, 

Freely, strongly still ; 
Let the sounds of trafiic die : 

Shut the mill-gate — leave the stall, 
Fling the axe and hammer by ; 

Throng to Faneuil Hall ! 

Wrongs which freemen never brooked. 
Dangers grim and fierce as they. 

Which, like couching lions, looked 
On your fathers' way ; 

' Faneuil Hall, in Boston, sometimes called the ' ' Cradle of 
Liberty." 



34 American Song. 

These your instant zeal demand, 
Shaking with their earthquake call 

Every rood of Pilgrim land — 
Ho, to Faneuil Hall ! 

From your capes and sandy bars. 

From your mountain ridges cold, 
Through whose pines the westering stars 

Stoop their crowns of gold — 
Come, and with your footsteps v/ake 

Echoes from that holy wall ; 
Once again, for Freedom's sake. 

Rock your fathers' hall ! 

Up, and tread beneath your feet 

Every cord by party spun ; 
Let your hearts together beat 

As the heart of one. 
Banks and tariffs, stocks and trade, 

Let them rise or let them fall : 
Freedom asks your common aid, — 

Up to Faneuil Hall ! 

Up, and let each voice that speaks, 

Ring from thence to Southern plains, 
Sharply as the blow which breaks 

Prison-bolts and chains ! 
Speak as well becomes the free — 

Dreaded more than steel or ball. 
Shall your calmest utterance be. 

Heard from Faneuil Hall ! 

Have they wronged us ? Let us then 
Render back nor threats nor prayers ; 



Whittier, 35 



Have they chained our free-born men ? 

Let us unchain theirs ! 
Up ! your banner leads the van, 

Blazoned " Liberty for all ! " 
Finish what your sires began ! 

Up, to Faneuil Hall ! 

RANTOUL/ 

One day, along the electric wire 
His manly word for Freedom sped ; 

We came next morn ; that tongue of fire 
Said only, " He who spake is dead ! " 

Dead ! while his voice was living yet. 
In echoes round the pillared dome ! 

Dead ! while his blotted page lay wet 
With themes of state and loves of home ! 

Dead ! in that crowning grace of time. 
That triumph of life's zenith hour ! 

Dead ! while we watched his manhood's prime 
Break from the slow bud into flower ! 

Dead ! he so great, and strong, and wise. 
While the mean thousands yet drew breath ; 

How deepened, through that dread surprise, 
The mystery and the awe of death ! 

From the high place whereon our votes 
Had borne him, clear, calm, earnest, fell 

His first words, like the prelude notes 
Of some great anthem yet to swell. 

* Robert Rantoul^ born at Beverly, Mass., in 1805. 



36 America7t Song, 

We seemed to see our flag unfurled, 

Our champion waiting in his place 
For the last battle of the world — 

The Armageddon ^ of the race. 

Through him we hoped to speak the word 
Which wins the freedom of the land ; 

And lift, for human right, the sword 
Which dropped from Hampden's ^ dying hand. 

For he had sat at Sidney's ^ feet. 

And walked with Pym* and Vane ^ apart ; 

And through the centuries, felt the beat 
Of Freedom's march in Cromwell's " heart. 

He knew the paths the worthies held, 
Where England's best and wisest trod ; 

And, lingering, drank the springs that welled 
Beneath the touch of Milton's rod. 

No wild enthusiast of the right. 

Self-poised and clear, he showed alway 

The coolness of his northern night. 
The ripe repose of autumn's day. 

^ Armageddon, a region of Palestine. See Rev. xvi. , 14-16. 

2 John Hampden, an illustrious English patriot and statesman, born 
at London in 1594. 

' Sir Philip Sidney, born at Penshurst, England, in 1554. 

* John Pym, a wise associate of Hampden, born at Brymore, 
England, in 1554. 

^ Sir Henry Vane, an English statesman, born in Kent in 1589. 

' Oliver Crojnwell, Protector of England, born at Huntingdon in 
1599. 



Whittier. 37 



His steps were slow, yet forward still 

He pressed where others paused or failed ; 

The calm star clomb * with constant will, 
The restless meteor flashed and paled ! 

Skilled in its subtlest wile, he knew 
And owned the higher ends of Law ; 

Still rose majestic on his view 

The awful Shape the schoolman saw. 

Her home the heart of God ; her voice 

The choral harmonies whereby 
The stars, through all their spheres, rejoice, 

The rhythmic rule of earth and sky ! 



We saw his great powers misapplied 
To poor ambitions ; yet, through all. 

We saw him take the weaker side. 

And right the wronged, and free the thrall. 

Now, looking o'er the frozen North 
For one like him in word and act, 

To call her old, free spirit forth. 

And give her faith the life of fact, — 

To break her party bonds of shame, 

And labor with the zeal of him 
To make the Democratic name 

Of Liberty the synonym, — 

* Clomb, past of climb ; not good in prose. 



38 American Song. 

We sweep the land from hill to strand, 
We seek the strong, the wise, the brave, 

And, sad of heart, return to stand 
In silence by a new-made grave ! 



There, where his breezy hills of home 
Look out upon his sail-white seas. 

The sounds of winds and waters come, 
And shape themselves to words like these : 

" Why, murmuring, mourn that he, whose power 

Was lent to Party over long, 
Heard the still whisper at the hour 

He set his foot on Party wrong ? 

" The human life that closed so well 

No lapse of folly now can stain ; 
The lips whence Freedom's protest fell 

No meaner thought can now profane. 

*' Mightier than living voice his grave 

That lofty protest utters o'er ; 
Through roaring wind and smiting wave 

It speaks his hate of wrong once more. 

" Men of the North ! your weak regret 

Is wasted here ; arise and pay 
To freedom and to him your debt, 

By following where he led the way ! " 




RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



The poetry of Emerson is to most persons hard to 
understand ; certainly so under conditions of mere 
surface reading. Yet, to understand it, takes a 
method neither long nor difficult. Two things only 
are requisite. To know Emerson's biography is 
indispensable ; and as appreciation of prose is easier 
than that of poetry and prepares the way for the 
latter, a reader, to discriminate in and to understand 
these poems, should acquaint himself with Emer- 
son's essays. 

Originally written and delivered as lectures, Emer- 
son's prose writings find a counterpart in the well- 
known poems written to be recited, such as the 
Concord Hymn, the Concord Ode, and the Boston 
Hymn, which, being composed rhetorically, are not 
Emerson's best poems. The contemplative poem, 
Voluntaries, on the other hand, making universal 
application of a public subject, is indisputably of a 
high order. The idea of a just destiny behind the 
state is here expounded with the spiritual force that 
Emerson so much aspired to wield. 

Other poems of Emerson's are autobiographical, 
sketching, as will be seen later, his inner history. 

39 



40 American Song, 

Outwardly his life was in the main quiet and 
uneventful. Ralph Waldo Emerson was born in 
Boston, May 25, 1803, on Summer Street, then in a 
suburban district. His ancestry included several 
New England ministers of more or less eminence. 
From earliest boyhood Emerson grew up under in- 
fluence favorable to study. Morally he was con- 
stantly and strongly influenced by his aunt, Miss 
Mary Emerson, a serious woman, thoughtfully inter- 
ested in her nephew. In 18 17 Emerson entered 
Harvard College, where he seems not to have been 
remarkable in general as a scholar, and only barely 
so in composition. Yet he read (more for himself 
than for his professors) a good deal in the litera- 
ture not only of the day but of earlier times. After 
graduation he taught for a number of years and later 
preached, resigning his charge in 1832 and sailing 
for Europe, where he remained about a year. On 
his return he began his lecturing, and from 1835 
resided in Concord until his death, April 27, 1882. 

As illustrating Emerson's biography, Good-byey 
Proud World, Berrying, and Terminus are of slight 
and incidental value. The poet as a lover writes 
To Ellen, To Eva, The Amulet, and Thine Eyes Still 
Shined. Only sad, serious subjects, however, called 
out his richest, fullest power, as in the Dirge and 
Threnody. The development of his character as a 
whole is reflected in other poems, also in his journal 
and in his letters. All these data are valuable as 
showing the stages of growth in the mind of a man 
of letters. In his attitude towards himself, at 
twenty-one, he shows an inquiring spirit, a conscious- 



Emerson, 41 

ness of his own defects, and a distrust of his abiHty. 
Next, in the series of Httle pieces entitled Nature 
and Life, and constituting a further deliberation, he 
begins consciously high resolve and advances toward 
nobler and nobler self-possession. The course of 
these years is one of the most beautiful tales, though 
fragmentary, of the spiritualizing of a soul. After- 
wards, in his voyage to Europe, his notes at sea are 
in a new style, the lightness and the loveliness of his 
prose beginning to come forth. Europe gave him 
more than it gives to many ; if it did not furnish 
Emerson's inspiration, it prepared him to receive it. 
Not long after his return Emerson wrote the 
greater part of his poems and essays, and then it 
was that the woods and waters of New England 
began to supply him with his imagery and embel- 
lishments. Indeed, it is almost necessary to be a 
New Englander in order to understand him ; and to 
New Englanders his poems on nature have appealed 
strongly. He combines the sharp observation of 
the naturalist with the reverie of the artist and the 
idealist. His love of nature increasing as he grew 
older, he wrote more and with greater pains in this 
direction. The poem, May-Day, has parts in it 
in which Emerson is almost as attentive to finish of 
style as Milton is in his Comus. Both in Emerson's 
first and in his second volume hardly a poem on 
nature can be found but has its distinct excellence 
of sentiment or description. The melody of the 
Humble-Bee, the dainty picture of the Titmouse, the 
grandeur and the terraces of Seashore, and Monadnoc, 
the airy citadel, are not unusually striking by their 



42 American Song. 

variety of difference. Occasionally Emerson showed 
second sight, as when Musketaquid ' symbolizes to 
him the vast, endless river of the ages. He is not 
so much at home, as in nature, in worldly themes, 
where the Romany Girl, with her wild gypsy grace, 
is almost his only representative. 

Emerson's philosophical poems aim to exhibit 
intellectual and moral truths. Underlying each 
poem and often more suggested than expounded, a 
single idea is given, not abstractly, as with most 
philosophers, but bodied forth by a number of 
examples. The subjects are taken from fields 
widely distant in time and space. As if collecting 
material for experimenting in the New World, Em- 
erson has drawn alike from the moderns, from the 
classics, and from the literature of the East. The 
subject may be a virtue (Heroism), an idea with a 
moral bearing (Nemesis), or even an association at 
bottom pagan (Brahma). 

It is a question whether this poetry should be 
judged by a criterion applied commonly at present : 
that is, whether excellence here is dependent on the 
presence of matter " simple, sensuous, impassioned." ^ 
A poem filled with the kind of philosophy that 
Emerson treats of cannot perhaps be as simple as 
most poetry is, and still pursue its end. For phi- 
losophy in any form is not easy to understand ; cer- 
tainly not for one who is ignorant of its methods, 
and who is as indisposed to study them as most 

^ Musketaquid, a river of Concord. 

'"Simple, sensuous, impassioned," — Matthew Arnold quoting 
Milton. 



Emerson. 43 

readers of poetry are. Since, furthermore, Emerson's 
philosophical generalizations in verse, instead of 
being expanded throughout a large volume, are 
condensed within a small compass, it may not be 
reasonable to expect more than a moderate transfer 
of the matter to metric expression. 

On the whole it may be doubted whether Emer- 
son's poetry has been over-estimated. Without 
being ever perhaps a consummate artist throughout 
even a short poem, Emerson has abundant and vari- 
ous manifestation of the poetic spirit. This per- 
ceived, one has next to see the ground of his 
pre-eminence. His admirers are wont, and rightly, 
to point to the fanciful beauty in the opening lines 
of the Ode at Concord^ to the picturesqueness of the 
Rhodora, or to the charm of the Humble-Bee : poems 
carrying a certain aroma of intellectual and emotional 
suggestiveness in single lines. Yet depth is more to 
a poet's credit than elegance, and the tone of a poem 
more than quotable extracts. The greater forces 
and qualities, I repeat, lie in such poems as have the 
grandeur of Voluntaries, or the indirect expression and 
personal passion of the Threnody : poems where there 
is real seriousness, real perception of the fundamental 
forces in the world and in man ; and poems also 
which distinguish Emerson as him among our poets 
who most grows upon one at the second reading. 
Such an excellence can mean only one thing — that 
in certain respects he is the greatest American poet. 

Special references : Emerson! s Poems^ and May-Day and Other 
Pieces', Csihot's Memoir of Emerson ', ilolrtxts's, Emerson, "Ameri- 
can Men of Letters " Series (the chapter on Emerson's poetry), — 
Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 



44 American Song. 



GIVE ALL TO LOVE. 

Give all to love ; 

Obey thy heart ; 

Friends, kindred, days. 

Estate, good-fame. 

Plans, credit, and the muse, — 

Nothing refuse. 

'T is a brave master 
Let it have scope ; 
Follow it utterly, 
Hope beyond hope ; 
High and more high 
It dives ^ into noon, 

With wing unspent, 

Untold intent ; 

But it is a god. 

Knows its own path 

And the outlets of the sky. 

It was never for the mean ; 

It requireth courage stout. 

Souls above doubt, 
Valor unbending. 
It will reward, — 
They shall return 
More than they were. 
And ever ascending. 

Leave all for love ; 
Yet, hear me, yet. 

Dives. What is the meaning of the word here ? 



Emerson. 45 



One word more thy heart behoved, 
One pulse more of vain endeavor,— 
Keep thee to-day, 
To-morrow, forever, 
Free as an Arab 
Of thy beloved. 

Cling with life to the maid, 

But when the surprise. 

First vague shadow of surmise 

Flits across her bosom young, 

Of a joy apart from thee. 

Free be she, fancy-free ; 

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, 

Nor the palest rose she flung 

From her summer diadem. 

Though thou loved her as thyself. 

As a self of purer clay. 

Though her parting dims the day, 

Stealing grace from all alive ; 

Heartily know. 

When half-gods go. 

The gods arrive. 

CHARACTER. 

The sun set, but set not his hope ; 
Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up : 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy. 
Deeper and older seemed his eye ; 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time. 



46 American Song, 

He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the age of gold again : 
His action won such reverence sweet 
As hid all measure of the feat. 



HERI, HODIE, CRAS.* 

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen, 
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between ; 
Future or past no richer secret folds, 
O friendless present ! than thy bosom holds. 

^ Heri, Hodie, Cras, yesterday, to-day, to-morrow. 




EDGAR ALLAN POE. 



As the author of The Raven and the prose tales, 
Poe not only holds a permanent place in American 
literature, but is widely read in Europe, particularly 
by the French. Among other single poems by Poe, 
many are unique in conception and in art. That he 
showed unusual keenness while criticising contem- 
porary literature may also be perceived. 

Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, January 19, 
1809. His mother was of distinguished talent on the 
stage. On his father's side Poe was a grandson of 
General David Poe, an ardent patriot in the Revolu- 
tion. Both parents dying before he was three years 
old, he was adopted by a Mr. John Allan, who 
greatly indulged him during his boyhood, and who 
in 1 8 16 placed Poe in school for five years at Stoke 
Newington, England, among antique and picturesque 
surroundings. The intricate construction of the 
house where Poe attended and the venerableness of 
the village are described in the author's tale, William 
Wilson. In 1822 he continued his education at 
Richmond, Virginia, seeing there for the first time 
his friend, Mrs. Stannard, who assumed in his mind 

47 



4^ American Song. 

the position of an ideal love, and in memory of whom 
he wrote the short poem To Helen beginning 

" Helen, thy beauty is to me," 

and published in his third volume of verse. In 1826 
he entered the University of Virginia, where he 
studied Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and Spanish, 
although more proficient in the second and the 
third. 

The two periods of imitation and originality are 
well marked in Poe's poetic production. In the first 
period, Tamerlane^ published in 1827, shows the in- 
fluence of Byron ; and Al Aaraaf, two years later, 
that of Moore. These and Politian, which appeared 
several years afterwards, are Poe's only long poems. 

To the River , in the collection headed by 

Al Aaraaf, is clear and suggestive in its language, 
and gives sign of the power in the volume of 1 831, 
in which appeared several poems in a form subse- 
quently changed, such as Israfel, which in its tone 
of high confidence stands by itself among Poe's 
works ; and The Pcean, which later became Lenore 
with its almost perfect lines — 

" Let no bell toll ; — lest her sweet soul, 

Amid its hallowed mirth. 
Should catch the note as it doth float — 
Unto a high estate far up within the Heaven ; — 
From grief and groan to a golden throne 

Beside the King of Heaven.'* 

Poe was soon busied in editorial work in New 



Poe. 49 

York, then in Philadelphia, and later at Rich- 
mond, where, May i6, 1836, he married his cousin, 
Virginia Clemm. 

During this period his poems were published 
singly. In The Conqueror Worm, Poe is not merely 
sombre, but tragic. The Raven, if not the most 
admirable, is the most celebrated American poem. 
While others of their creator's works are strongly 
marked by compression and individuality. The Raven 
has these to a surpassing degree. It has also the 
fineness of rhythm of The Bells, the weirdness of 
The City by the Sea, The Haunted Palace, or the 
tales, the beauty of the succeeding lyrics, and vivid- 
ness, composition, and elegance of its own. 

In the period reaching from the death of Mrs. Poe, 
January 30, 1847, till his own death, October 7, 
1849, ^^^ produced several of his best poems. He 
seems here to have increased the progress towards 
sincerity with which poetically he proceeded all 
through life. Eulalie is a picture of his affection for 
his wife ; To My Mother, an expression of his debt 
to Mrs. Clemm, his wife's mother. The Bells, on the 
other hand, is an exhibition of technical skill in versi- 
fication. Among the rest. To Helen, addressed to 
Mrs. Whitman, and beginning 

" I saw thee once — once only — years ago — " 

is in fancy and high-strung emotion one of the 
highest points ever attained by Poe, a poem in which 
the least mistake or insincerity would have made it 
a failure. The incident described is said to have had 



50 Afnerican Song, 

its foundation in his having seen her walking in the 
moonhght among the roses of her garden. 

It is right and it is time to throw a veil over Poe's 
faults. As to his virtues, he was strongest on the 
intellectual side. Not only was his patience in 
literary labor of immense value to himself in his art, 
but his fearlessness in criticism has been a service to 
American literature. 

To appreciate Poe, the imagination requires either 
distance of time or independence of attitude. It 
may, however, be observed that the interest attach- 
ing to his poetry is strictly of the personal and 
private kind. Yet if apart from The Raven, Poe was 
the least of the greater American poets, except as 
to form, in which he was careful exceedingly, who 
would aiifirm that in his originality as well as in 
clearness and execution he was inferior to any par- 
ticular poet who wrote later? 

Poe's tales are, among short prose works, at the 
head of American fiction ; and are inferior only to 
the more sustained romances of Hawthorne. In his 
essays Poe is best as a critic of poetry. He did not 
excel as a philosophical theorist ; for he had neither 
the kind of genius nor the training requisite. But it 
is well to note the frequent agreement between his 
obiter dicta when he gave critical judgments on litera- 
ture and the views in Mr. Stedman's excellent Poets 
of America-, and also to test Poe's conclusions by 
attentive study of the authors he criticised. Among 
the numerous examples of Poe's correctness are his 
brief characterization of Bryant's Waterfowl ; the 
comparison between Bryant and Longfellow, with 



Poe. 51 

the general criticism on other authors that suggests 
itself ; and again the enthusiastic comment upon 
Hawthorne. 

For a view of Poe from all sides, in addition to 
Mr. Stedman's chapter on Poe in the Poets of 
America, for the literary aspect Lowell's powerfully 
analytical essay, prefixed to the complete authorized 
edition of Poe's works, ought to be read ; and for the 
biography several books in the case of this author. 
For the facts, Woodberry's Life of Poe (Houghton, 
Mififlin, & Co.), a work of special research, is the best. 
Ingram's is also worth reading, as giving the more 
favorable side of Poe's character ; or Gill's, but this, 
while it has a table of contents, is not indexed. 

TO THE RIVER . 



Fair river ! in thy bright, clear flow 
Of crystal, wandering water, 

Thou art an emblem of the glow 

Of beauty — the unhidden heart — 
The playful magazines of art 

In old Alberto's daughter ; 

But when within thy wave she looks — 
Which glistens then, and trembles- 
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks 
Her worshipper resembles ; 
For in his heart, as in thy stream, 

Her image deeply lies — 
His heart which trembles at the beams 
Of her soul-searching eyes. 



52 American Song. 

LENORE. 

Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown forever ! 
Let the bell toll ! a saintly soul floats on the Stygian 

river ; 
And, Guy De Vere, hast thou no tear ? — weep now or 

never more ! 
See ! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love 

Lenore ! 
Come ! let the burial rite be read — the funeral song be 

sung ! — 
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so 

young — 
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so 

young. 

" Wretches ! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her 

for her pride, 
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her that 

she died ! 
How shall the ritual, then, be read ? — the requiem how 

be sung 
By you — by yours, the evil eye, — by yours, the slanderous 

tongue. 
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so 

young ? 

^^ Peccavtmus J but rave not thus ! and let a Sabbath song 
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong ! 
The sweet Lenore hath * gone before,' with Hope, that 

flew beside, 
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have 

been thy bride — 
For her, the fair and d^bonnaire^ that now so lowly lies, 



Poe. 53 



The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes — 
The life still there, upon her hair — the death upon her 
eyes. 

"Avaunt ! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I 

upraise, 
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days ! 
Let no bell toll ! lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed 

mirth. 
Should catch the note, as it doth float up from the 

damned earth. 
To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost 

is riven — 
From hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven — 
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the 

King of Heaven." 

TO HELEN. 

I saw thee once — once only — years ago ; 

I must not say how many — but not many. 

It was a July midnight ; and from out 

A full-orbed moou, that, like thine own soul, soaring, 

Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven. 

There fell a silvery-silken veil of light. 

With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber, 

Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand 

Roses that grew in an enchanted garden. 

Where no winds dared to stir, unless on tiptoe — 

Fell on the upturned faces of those roses 

That gave out, in return for the love-light. 

Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death — 

Fell on the upturned faces of those roses 

That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted 



54 American Song. 

By thee and by the poetry of thy presence. 

Clad all in white, upon a violet bank 

I saw thee half reclining ; while the moon 

Fell on the upturned faces of the roses, 

And on thine own, upturned — alas, in sorrow ! 



Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight — 

Was it not Fate (whose name is also Sorrow), 

That bade me pause before that garden-gate. 

To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses ? 

No foot-step stirred : the hated world all slept. 

Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven ! — oh, God ! 

How my heart beats in coupling those two words !) 

Save only thee and me. I paused — I looked — 

And in an instant all things disappeared. 

(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted !) 

The pearly lustre of the moon went out : 

The mossy banks and the meandering paths. 

The happy flowers and repining trees. 

Were seen no more ; the very roses' odors 

Died in the arms of the adoring airs. 

All — all expired save thee — save less than thou : 

Save only the divine light in thine eyes — 

Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes. 

I saw but them — they were the world to me. 

I saw but them — saw only them for hours — 

Saw only them until the moon went down. 

What wild heart-histories seemed to lie enwritten 

Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres ! 

How dark a woe ! yet how sublime a hope ! 

How silently serene a sea of pride ! 

How daring an ambition ! yet how deep — 

How fathomless a capacity for love ! 



Poe. 



55 



But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight, 

Into a western couch of thunder-cloud ; 

And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees 

Didst glide away. Only thi7ie eyes remained. 

They would not go — they never yet have gone. 

Lighting my lonely pathway home that night, 

They have not left me (as my hopes have) since. 

They follow me — they lead me through the years — 

They are my ministers — yet I their slave. 

Their office is to illumine and enkindle — 

My duty, to be saved by their bright light, 

And purified by their electric fire. 

And sanctified in their elysian fire. 

They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope), 

And are far up in Heaven — the stars I kneel to 

In the sad, silent watches of my night ; 

While even in the meridian glare of day 

I see them still — two sweetly scintillant 

Venuses, unextinguished by the sun ! 




JONES VERY. 



It would be a mistake, it is believed, to class Very, 
as some may have classed him, among minor or ob- 
scure poets ; for it would be to neglect alike the 
quality of his inspiration and the tone of his diction. 
Yet to make this affirmation alone would not be suf- 
ficient. We have much reason to think that in 
greatness as well as in completeness of sincerity, the 
poems of Very may be taken as those of one of the 
chief American poets. 

Very's outward life, while honorable, was unevent- 
ful. Jones Very was born at Salem, Massachusetts, 
August 28, 18 1 3. In his boyhood he accompanied 
his father, a shipmaster, on voyages to New Orleans 
and to Cronstadt. Having entered Harvard in 1834, 
he was graduated in 1836, and was appointed tutor 
in Greek, where he was highly esteemed as a teacher. 
Meantime he studied in the Divinity School. His 
best literary work was produced at this time. After- 
wards, in 1838, he retired to Salem. A volume con- 
taining poems and three essays from him appeared 
in 1839. Throughout his Hfe among those who 
knew and understood him he commanded the high- 
est respect. After quiet days he died May 8, 1880. 

56 



Very. 



57 



Very has received a rarer and nobler recognition 
than popularity ; men of genius have concurred in 
praising him. In respect to his poems and the voice 
that speaks in them, Bryant, Emerson, and Haw- 
thorne have each paid positive tribute. 

The mind from which Very's poetry came was of 
an unusual order, and one that cannot be judged 
without special study, though the poetry of that 
mind may be enjoyed. He was one of those few 
Americans (perhaps the only American) for whom 
religious contemplation is everything ; and one of 
those mortals to whom above others is, in spiritual 
things, granted the clearest vision. Such a man, as we 
know with regard to oriental mystics, with whom con- 
ditions are more favorable for solitary, rapt meditation 
than in America, naturally and rightly regards him- 
self as a teacher of divine truth, and an exposer of 
worldly pretension and sin ; in America less natu- 
rally but not less rightly, this was the case with 
Very. 

Very's religion, however, was at its best and 
strongest in his poems. There his mysticism takes 
a wide range. With reverence toward God is min- 
gled a joy in the presence of nature, a love of beauty, 
and a deep perception and firm reproval of sin. 

Thus there is something in Very which makes him 
different from the other American poets. Not that 
his gift is inferior to theirs ; on the contrary, a per- 
fect vision of eternal things is the truest and most 
excellent poetry that can exist. It is only necessary 
to compare Very with the others to perceive that he 
has also a distinct individuality on the side of char- 



58 American Song. 

acter. He has, for example, greater reverence than 
Emerson ; and a purpose more single than Long- 
fellow's. 

Very's thought is not usually difficult of appre- 
hension for any one in the proper mood ^ ; though 
he is never superficial, and his exact meaning cannot 
be always seen without close attention and without 
reflection. He may be called an eternal poet in the 
sense that he treats of the divine state to which 
mankind will always aspire rather than they will 
outgrow. 

Special reference : Very's Poems, edited by James Freeman 
Clarke. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 



THE SILENT. 

There is a sighing in the wood, 
A murmur in the beating wave, 

The heart has never understood 

To tell in words the thoughts they gave. 

Yet oft it feels an answering tone, 

When wandering on the lonely shore ; 

And could the lips its voice make known, 
'T would sound as does the ocean's roar. 

And oft beneath the wind-swept pine 
Some chord is struck the strain to swell ; 

Nor sounds nor language can define, — 
'T is not for words or sounds to tell. 

^ The reader should instead doubt hi s own fitness. 



Very. 



59 



'T is all unheard, that Silent Voice, 
Whose goings forth, unknown to all, 

Bids bending reed and bird rejoice, 
And fills with music Nature's hall. 

And in the speechless human heart 

It speaks where'er man's feet have trod, 

Beyond the lips' deceitful art, 
To tell of Him, the Unseen God. 

THE RIVER. 

Oh ! swell my bosom deeper with thy love, 

That I some river's widening mouth may be ; 
And ever on, for many a mile above, 

May flow the floods that enter from thy sea ; 
And may they not retreat as tides of earth, 

Save but to flow from Thee that they have flown, 
Soon may my spirit find that better birth, 

Where the retiring wave is never known ; 
But Thou dost flow through every channel wide, 

With all a Father's love in every soul ; 
A stream that knows no ebb, a swelling tide 

That rolls forever on and finds no goal, 
Till in the hearts of all shall opened be 
The ocean depths of thine eternity. 

YOURSELF. 

*T is to yourself I speak ; you cannot know 
Him whom I call in speaking such a one. 

For you beneath the earth lie buried low. 
Which he alone as living walks upon : 



6o American Song. 

You may at times have heard him speak to you, 

And often wished perchance that you were he ; 
And I must ever wish that it were true, 

For then you could hold fellowship with me ; 
But now you hear us talk as strangers, met 

Above the room wherein you lie abed ; 
A word perhaps loud spoken you may get, 

Or hear our feet when heavily they tread ; 
But he who speaks, or him who 's spoken to, 
Must both remain as strangers still to you. 

NATURE. 

Nature ! my love for thee is deeper far 

Than strength of words, though spirit-born, can tell 
For while I gaze they seem my soul to bar, 

That in thy widening streams would onward swell, 
Bearing thy mirrored beauty on its breast, — 

Now through thy lonely haunts unseen to glide, 
A motion that scarce knows itself from rest. 

With pictured flowers and branches on its tide ; 
Then by the noisy city's frowning wall. 

Whose armed heights within its waters gleam, 
To rush with answering voice to ocean's call, 

And mingle with the deep its swollen stream. 
Whose boundless bosom's calm alone can hold 
That heaven of glory in thy skies unrolled. 

THE TREES OF LIFE. 

For those who worship Thee there is no death. 
For all they do is but with Thee to dwell : 

Now while I take from Thee this passing breath, 
It is but of thy glorious name to tell ; 



Very. 



6i 



Nor words nor measured sounds have I to find, 

But in them both my soul doth ever flow ; 
They come as viewless as the unseen wind, 

And tell thy noiseless steps where'er I go ; 
The trees that grow along thy living stream, 

And from its springs refreshment ever drink, 
Forever glittering in thy morning beam 

They bend them o'er the river's grassy brink. 
And, as more high and wide their branches grow, 
They look more fair within the depths below. 




HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 



Longfellow has added the sense of fancy to 
American life. As a poet he is distinguished in 
American literature for imagination in his literary- 
treatment and for largeness and skill in the framing 
of his ideas and pictures. At the time he wrote he 
cast his seed into a warm, moist soil already fertil- 
ized by previous literary efforts. As a man his life 
is full of charm and of suggestiveness for study.* 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born at Port- 
land, Maine, February 22, 1807. His father was a 
man much honored in the state ; it was from his 
mother that he inherited a taste for romance." In 
his home he had access to Shakespeare, Milton, 
Thomson, Goldsmith, Johnson's Lives of the Poets, 
Plutarch's Lives and the like. *' As a boy he was of 
a tender, sensitive disposition," but was also " the 
sunlight of the house." ^ 

* His biography by his brother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, has 
merit not only for autheiaticity, but for the fulness with which we see 
the personality and the humanity of the most lovable of American 
characters. 

' While he was in college he corresponded with his mother on the 
subject of Gray's Odes, for instance, expressing his admiration of 
them. In reply she stated her own poetical opinions and observa- 
tions, — Life, vol. 1., pp. 29-32. 

* For a glimpse of his home in childhood, see ibid, vol. i., pp. 14, 15. 

62 



Lo7tg/ellow. 63 

In 1 82 1 he entered Bowdoin, where, in his observ- 
ance of regular study and in his pursuit of general 
Hterature, he seems to have been one of those who 
have the strength and poise for success both in duty 
and in ambition. 

Graduating in 1825, he spent from 1826 to 1829 
travelling and studying in continental Europe ; was 
professor of modern languages at Bowdoin from 
1829 to 1835 ; and after another year abroad, occu- 
pied the same position at Harvard from 1835 till 
1856. 

Longfellow's earlier poems, which were written be- 
fore he was nineteen, show the influence of Bryant, 
but no sign of his own later power, his rich nature 
requiring the favor of many literary conditions and 
of much stimulus before it would fully come forth ; 
for a dozen years he wrote not a single original poem. 

In 1833 Longfellow published his stately transla- 
tion of the Coplas of Manrique, who was one of a 
number of modern poets Longfellow handled in a 
similar way. In 1835 he put forth Outre Mer, a suc- 
cession of papers having a general resemblance to 
Irving's Sketch-Book^ but by the thread of their 
narrative connected more closely together. 

Four years later appeared Hyperion, a second 
prose romance, which was strongly suggestive of the 
interest in German literature then becoming active. 
From this source, and from his study of the Greek 
poets, is partly due the inspiration of Longfellow's 
poems Flowers, A Psalm of Life ^2^\6. others in the 

' Longfellow, while writing the Hyperion had this resemblance in 
mind. The Sketch-Book was also Lonicrfellow's first favorite volume. 



64 American Song. 

Voices of the Night, which was published, like Hy- 
perion, in 1839. 

Longfellow's first truly poetical inspiration did not 
find him unprepared. His early modest sense of 
immaturity and littleness before the great works 
upon which he had for several years been musing, 
had led him to sympathetic study. Now, in 1839, 
he had his materials ready and his sensibilities 
trained. If he wanted anything from foreign litera- 
ture to aid him in the composition of a poem, he 
knew readily where he could find what he desired. 
He had also acquired taste, appreciation, a sense 
of proportion, a true perception of the beautiful, 
and unusual technical skill. Accordingly, from 
the Voices of the Night on, his works flowed from 
him easily and increased rapidly in strength and 
variety, for he had then merely to perform that 
difficult literary function which deals with the con- 
crete expression of the beautiful, or in its higher 
form with the harmonious creating and proportion- 
ing which constitutes imagination. 

The Skeleton in Armor, the outcome of about two 
years' brooding and painstaking, was a long step 
forward. Still more reproductive of the old ballad 
is the Wreck of the Hesperus. About the same time 
came the popular Village Blacksmith. Among 
others of about the same date. The Slave Singing at 
Midnight has an unconscious power of outspoken- 
ness ; The Spanish Student, a play, is the most 
ambitious of Longfellow's writings up to this time ^ ; 

* Note, however, the pleasing and graceful scene between Vittorio 
and Preciosa. 



Longfellow, 65 

and The Arsenal at Springfield, The Bridge, and 
The Old Clock on the Stairs are, each in their own 
way, of conspicuous merit. 

In 1847, with Evangeline, Longfellow's first suc- 
cessful poem which was written in hexameter verse, 
he sounded a deeper and more sustained pathos 
than ever before. Kavanagh, in 1849, ^ prose tale, 
containing an occasional note of gentle satire,^ is 
a series of pleasant pictures of New England life 
and sentiment half a century ago. Shorter poems 
with subjects well treated are The Building of 
the Ship, The Light-House, and The Fire of Drift- 
Wood. 

In 185 1, Longfellow published The Golden Legend, 
the first of the trilogy, the Christus, on which he 
labored from the time of its first conception for 
over thirty years.'^ The Golden Legend on a sacred 
theme continues the strain of pathos shown by 
Longfellow in Evangeline, and deals with the spirit 
of Christianity as revealed in the Middle Ages. 

The Song of Hiawatha, in 1855, has been called 
America's first contribution to world literature. In 
this poem, Longfellow, having perceived the poetic 
capabilities of the Indian legends, welded them 
into a whole, the life of which is quickened by 
invention of his own. A breath of nature passes 
over the pages, and the public attention hitherto 
paid to the mechanism and commonplace narratives 



* Such as the exquisite Chapter XX., with its caricature in the per- 
sonage, Hathaway, and with the suggestive truth of its discussion. 
2 1841-1873. 
5 



66 , American Song. 

of the poem may well be turned to the higher flights 
of fancy and imagination/ 

In 1846, Longfellow, while visiting Portland, 
meditated a poem on his old home, and nine years 
later wrote My Lost Youth, A little later came The 
Children s Hour, Paul Revere s Ride, and the fine 
lyric. The Bells of Lynn. 

The Courtship of Miles Standish, in 1858, is a well- 
told and very life-like story in hexameters. An 
excellent, serious shorter poem of about the same 
time is the Warden of the Cinque Ports. 

Longfellow's translation of the Divine Comedy, 
which appeared several years later, is the best 
English version. Not only is the original rendered 
line for line, but the translation itself has a poetic 
charm thrown around it. 

The New England Tragedies, in 1869, made up the 
second part issued of Longfellow's sacred trilogy. 
The first of these two pathetic plays images the per- 
secution of the Quakers by Endicott, who was him- 
self in the power of the harsh superstition which was 
part of his creed. In the second tragedy, it is the 
fear of witchcraft which moves men to sacrifice their 
victims. Two years later, the third part of the 
trilogy. The Divine Tragedy, narrated in verse the 
story of the gospels, drawing from these the words 
of Christus, but imagining those of the minor per- 
sonages. Among Longfellow's best subsequent 
poems are The Four Lakes of Madison and The 
Leap of Rousha7i Beg. Michael Angelo, a long poem, 

^ To the beautiful description, for example, of the combat between 
Hiawatha and Mudjekeewis. 



Longfellow. ^i 

has a spirituality as noble and impassioned as any 
poem in American literature. Longfellow died March 
24, 1882. 

Longfellow's greatest works, Evangeline, Hia- 
watha, and The New England Tragedies, and among 
shorter poems The Skeleton in Armor and The Wreck 
of the Hesperus, are on American subjects. Yet his 
greatness over the other poets of this country is that 
he has interested, not this nation alone, but man- 
kind. 

Special references : Longfellow' s Poetical Works ; Longfellow's 
Life, edited by Rev. S. Longfellow. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 



THE SKELETON IN ARMOR.' 

" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest ! 
Who, with thy hollow breast 
Still in rude armor drest, 

Comest to daunt me ! 
Wrapt not in Eastern balms, 
But with thy fieshless palms 
Stretched, as if asking alms. 

Why dost thou haunt me ? " 

Then, from those cavernous eyes 
Pale flashes seemed to rise, 
As when the Northern skies 

Gleam in December ; 
And, like the water's flow 
Under December's snow, 

^ The Skeleton in Armor, found at the ruins of the round tower at 
Newport, R. I, 



68 American So7tg. 

Came a dull voice of woe 
From the heart's chamber. 

" I was a viking old ! 

My deeds though manifold, 

No Skald ^ in song has told, 

No Saga ^ taught thee ! 
Take heed, that in thy verse 
Thou dost the tale rehearse. 
Else dread a dead man's curse ; 

For this I sought thee. 

*' Far in the Northern land, 
By the wild Baltic's strand, 
I, with my childish hand, 

Tamed the gerfalcon ; 
And, with my skates fast-bound, 
Skim-med the half-frozen Sound, 
That the poor whimpering hound 

Trembled to walk on. 

" Oft to his frozen lair 
Tracked I the grisly bear. 
While from my path the hare 

Fled like a shadow ; 
Oft through the forest dark 
Followed the were-wolf's bark, 
Until the soaring lark 
Sang from the meadow. 

" But when I older grew. 
Joining a corsair's ^ crew, 

' Skald^ an ancient Scandinavian bard. 
^ Saga^ an ancient heroic Scandinavian tale. ^ Corsair, a pirate. 



Longfellow. 69 



O'er the dark sea I flew 

With the marauders. 
Wild was the life we led ; 
Many the souls that sped, 
Many the hearts that bled, 

By our stern orders. 

" Many a wassail-bout ^ 
Wore the long Winter out ; 
Often our midnight shout 

Set the cocks crowing, 
As we the Berserk's tale 
Measured in cups of ale, 
Draining the oaken pail, 

Filled to o'erflowing. 

" Once as I told in glee 
Tales of the stormy sea, 
Soft eyes did gaze on me. 

Burning yet tender ; 
And as the white stars shine 
On the dark Norway pine, 
On that dark heart of mine 

Fell their soft splendor. 

" I wooed the blue-eyed maid, 
Yielding, yet half afraid. 
And in the forest's shade. 

Our vows were plighted. 
Under its loosened vest 
Fluttered her little breast. 
Like birds within their nest, 

By the hawk frighted. 
* Wassail-bout^ a drinking bout. 



70 American Song. 



" Bright in her father's hall 
Shields gleamed upon the wall, 
Loud sang the minstrels all, 

Chanting his glory ; 
When of old Hildebrand 
I asked his daughter's hand, 
Mute did the minstrels stand 

To hear my story. 

" While the brown ale he quaffed, 
Loud then the champion laughed, 
And as the wind-gusts waft 

The sea-foam brightly. 
So the loud laugh of scorn, 
Out of those lips unshorn. 
From the deep drinking-horn 

Blew the foam lightly. 

" She was a prince's child, 

I but a Viking wild, 

And though she blushed and smiled, 

I was discarded ! 
Should not the dove so white 
Follow the sea-mew's flight, 
Why did they leave that night 

Her nest unguarded ? 

" Scarce had I put to sea. 
Bearing the maid with me. 
Fairest of all was she 

Among the Norsemen ! 
When on the white sea-strand. 
Waving his armed hand, 



Longfellow. 71 

Saw we old Hildebrand, 
With twenty horsemen. 

** Then launched they to the blast, 
Bent like a reed each mast, 
Yet v/e were gaining fast, 

When the wind failed us ; 
And with a sudden flaw 
Came round the gusty Skaw,^ 
So that our foe we saw 

Laugh as he hailed us. 

" And as to catch the gale 
Round veered the flapping sail. 
Death ! was the helmsman's hail, 

Death without quarter ! 
Mid-ships with iron keel 
Struck we her ribs of steel ; 
Down her black hulk did reel ; 

Through the black water ! 

" As with his wings aslant. 
Sails the fierce cormorant, 
Seeking some rocky haunt. 

With his prey laden. 
So toward the open main. 
Beating to sea again^ 
Through the wild hurricane, 

Bore I the maiden. 

** Three weeks we westward bore. 
And when the storm was o'er, 

^ Skaw, a promontory. 



72 American Song, 

Cloud-like we saw the shore 

Stretching to leeward ; 
There for my lady's bower 
Built I the lofty tower, 
Which to this very hour. 
Stands looking seaward. 

" There lived we many years ; 
Time dried the maiden's tears ; 
She had forgot her fears, 

She was a mother ; 
Death closed her mild blue eyes, 
Under that tower she lies ; 
Ne'er shall the sun arise 

On such another. 

" Still grew my bosom then, 
Still as a stagnant fen ! 
Hateful to me were men, 

The sunlight hateful ! 
In the vast forest here, 
Clad in my warlike gear. 
Fell I upon my spear, 

O, death was grateful ! 

" Thus, seamed with many scars. 
Bursting these prison bars. 
Up to its native stars 

My soul ascended ! 
There from the flowing bowl 
Deep drinks the warrior's soul. 
Skoal! to the Northland ! skoal!'' 

Thus the tale ended. 
^ Skoal^ "an exclamation of good wishes." 



Longfellow. iz 

MY LOST YOUTH. 

Often I think of the beautiful town ^ 

That is seated by the sea ; 
Often in thought go up and down 
The pleasant streets of that dear old town, 
And my youth comes back to me. 
And a verse of a Lapland song 
Is haunting my memory still, 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees, 

And catch, in sudden gleams, 
The sheen of the far- surrounding seas, 
And islands that were the Hesperides ' 
Of all my boyish dreams. 
And the burden of that old song. 
It murmurs and whispers still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the black wharves and the slips. 

And the sea-tides tossing free ; 
And Spanish sailors ^ with bearded lips. 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships. 
And the magic of the sea. 

And the voice of that wayward song 
Is singing and saying still : 

' Town, Portland, Maine. 

^ Hesperides, islands and gardens referred to by the ancients, and 
located to the west of them. See A^ithon's Class, Diet., Hesperides 
and Hesperidtmi Insula:. 

^ Spanish sailors^ engaged in the trade from the West Indies. 



74 American Song, 

" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' 



I remember the bulwarks by the shore, 

And the fort upon the hill ; 
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar 
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er, 
And the bugle wild and shrill. 
And the music of that old song 
Throbs in my memory still ; 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I remember the sea-fight far away. 
How it thundered o'er the tide ! 
And the dead captains as they lay 
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay, 
Where they in battle died. 

And the sound of that mournful song 
Goes through me with a thrill : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 

I can see the breezy dome of groves. 
The shadows of Deering's woods ; 
And the friendships old, and the early loves 
Come back with a sabbath sound, as of doves 
In quiet neighborhoods. 

And the verse of that sweet old song. 
It flutters and murmurs still : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts." 



Longfellow. 75 

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart 

Across the school-boy's brain ; 
The song and the silence in the heart, 
That in part are prophecies, and in part 
Are longings wild and vain. 

And the voice of that fitful song 
Sings on, and is never still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

There are things of which I may not speak ; 

There are dreams that cannot die ; 
There are thoughts that make the strong 

heart weak, 
And bring a pallor into the cheek, 
And a mist before the eye. 

And the words of that fatal song 
Come over me like a chill : 
"A boy's will is the wind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 

Strange to me now are the forms I meet 

When I visit the dear old town ; 
But the native air is pure and sweet. 
And the trees that o'ershadow each well- 
known street, 
As they balance up and down, 
Are singing the beautiful song. 
Are sighing and whispering still : 
" A boy's will is the v/ind's will. 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



76 American Song. 

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair, 

And with joy that is almost pain 
My heart goes back to wander there, 
And among the dreams of days that were, 
I find my lost youth again. 

And the strange and beautiful song, 
The groves are repeating it still : 
" A boy's will is the wind's will, 
And the thoughts of youth are long, long 
thoughts." 



DANTE. 

Tuscan,^ that wanderest through the realms of gloom, 
With thoughtful pace, and sad, majestic eyes. 
Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise. 

Like Farinata^ from his fiery tomb. 

Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom ; 
Yet in thy heart what human sympathies, 
What soft compassion glows, as in the skies 

The tender stars their clouded lamps relume ! 

Methinks I see thee stand, with pallid cheeks, 
By Fra Hilario ^ in his diocese, 

As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks. 

The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease ; 

And, as he asks what there the stranger seeks, 
Thy voice along the cloister whispers, *^ Peace ! " 

^ Tuscan^ Florence, Dante's birthplace, is in Tuscany. 
2 Farinata, a nobleman of Florence placed by Dante in his Inferno 
in a red-hot cofEn. 

2 Fra Hilario. See Leigh Hunt's account of Dante's errand. 



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



Like Longfellow, Lowell represents not alone 
the country which was his birth-place and the life of 
which he reflects ; he also embodies a continuation 
of the spirit of the literature whose tongue he spoke, 
though his best topics touch American soil, or 
appeal to American hearts, as in the Biglow Papers 
and the Harvard Commemoration Ode, 

James Russell Lowell was born in Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, February 22, 18 19. From his an- 
cestry his mental inheritance comprised both intel- 
lectual strength and the light grace of fancy. His 
grandfather, Judge John Lowell, won public respect 
and confidence ; his father. Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell, 
studied in the universities of two worlds* and was 
the writer of several works ; and his mother brought 
Lowell up in her own love of language and of the 
old ballads.'' Furthermore, at Lowell's home there 
was a large and choice library of modern master- 
pieces, which he not only read extensively, but, 
what is rarer, knew how to assimilate the parts that 
.concerned himself. 

* Harvard and Edinburgh, Study abroad was not common then. 
^ It is said that she sang them over the cradles of her children. 

77 



78 A^nerican Song. 

Lowell was graduated at Harvard in 1838. Three 
years later he published his first volume of poems, 
A Years Life, and in 1844 a- second volume. All 
the pieces from these two volumes which their 
author preserved have their respective merit : such 
poems as Lowell's love songs, his descriptions of 
nature, and his Ode, in which a mightier purpose 
emerges, and which in better and stronger fulfilment is 
found later transfigured in the Commemoration Ode, 
Freedom is the sincerest poem, at least before the 
Biglow Papers, that he ever wrote. In all his early- 
production, the aim is serious, the conceptions power- 
ful, and the accomplishment marked by grace and 
vigor. Yet in none of them had beauty reached 
through him its full expression, nor had moral 
indignation, though in evidence, yet found its most 
effective utterance. 

Before Lowell was thirty years of age, he had 
written the Vision of Sir Launfal, the Fable for 
Critics, and the first series of the Biglow Papers, — 
productions in which he proved himself to be a 
poet of great power and of abundant resources of 
style and imagery. In Sir Launfal, for the first 
time with Lowell, the tone of Christian morality is 
equalled by the beauty of varied materials ; and the 
observation of nature and the contemplation of 
human life become broader and more poetic. The 
Fable for Critics, although open to the charge of 
hastiness in some of its judgments, is a frank and 
strong poem. It should be observed that qualities 
in it which might seem defects now were the op- 
posite then ; as may be illustrated in Lowell's early 



Lowell. 79 

discernment there of the high station of Whittier 
and of Hawthorne, the former of whom had not 
yet reached perfection in verse, nor had the latter 
then written a great romance. 

The Biglow Papers, the first proof of Lowell's 
genius as a national poet, is of most importance as 
expressing the best elements of the national charac- 
ter up to that time ; and of subordinate value as a 
satire ' of follies of the day and as a vehicle for 
exhibiting the Yankee dialect and manners. The 
seriousness of the motive of the work should care- 
fully be discerned, the exuberant wit and humor in 
the Biglow Papers existing only to insure that the 
arrow of deep indignation should come to its mark 
on the light feather of grace and dialect. 

From the time of publication of the first series 
of the Biglow Papers, for nearly twenty years, 
Lowell published no important verse, with the ex- 
ception of the Biglow Papers, Second Series, which 
differed from the first principally in being more 
serious in style. During the interval Lowell was at 
first abroad, then succeeded to Longfellow's chair at 
Harvard, and afterwards became editor successively 
of the Atlantic Monthly and of the North American 
Review. \\\ 1864, he published Fireside Travels. 

The Commemoration Ode, a year later, was a rev- 
elation even to Lowell himself of a power in him far 
higher than any he had exercised hitherto, or exer- 
cised afterwards to the same perfection. The Ode 
contains passages that for true sublimity are tran- 
scended by those of no ode in the English language. 
In timeliness of utterance Lowell's ode surpasses all 



8o American Song. 

others. In the author, its echoes ring still loud and 
clear in Lowell's Concord Ode, or in the ode Under 
the Old Ehfiy where Washington draws his sword 
with such consequences. 

After the production of Under the Willows^ con- 
taining the modest Agro Dolce and the charming 
Auf Wiedersehen, the Cathedral rises forth at Low- 
ell's farthest reach of reflection. Large, profoundest 
meditation on a great theme is the kernel ; and such 
vision of the deep things perceived in nature and 
humanity is, when leading to the spiritual vision of 
the workings of God, the essence of the highest 
poetry. 

In 1870, Lowell published two volumes of essays, 
written in an attractive style. My Study Windows and 
Among my Books ^ First Series. In order to read 
them with appreciation, however, as well as enjoy- 
ment^ it is necessary for the reader to have, to start 
with, a fair amount of scholarship himself ; he will 
then find that his admiration of them grows with the 
increase in his own knowledge and sincerity. Among 
my Books, Second Series, is, if possible, still more 
scholarly. In the main the three volumes exhibit 
genius interpreting genius less familiar to the Ameri- 
can who peruses them. Less elaborate in style and 
in matter, but hardly less valuable are the remaining 
prose works of Lowell, Democracy and Other Essays, 
Political Essays^ Latest Literary Essays, and the Old 
English Dramatists, 

In Heartsease and Rue, written at the sunset of 
Lowell's life, his genius casts its light about more 

* Especially the essay last in order. 



Lowell. 8 1 

softly beautiful than ever before. Heartsease and 
Rue, Agassiz, Te^npora Muta7itur, and Fit z- Adams 
Story, with the well-drawn sketch of the gentle cynic 
who is the principal character, are longer poems of 
various notes. In the shorter ones of sentiment the 
wonderful youthfulness of the author seems to have 
been waiting its expression because he had all his life 
wished to take weightier things first. Lowell died 
August 12, 1891. 

First and foremost, Lowell is the American poet 
of patriotism. In his song for his country, the essen- 
tial ideas, while against national selfishness, vanity, 
or aggrandizement, also inspire the reader toward 
justice and freedom ; and he has scourged base poli- 
ticians as he would have done in any country so 
fortunate as to have been his birthplace. 

As a critic, Lowell was more than brilliant or v/itty ; 
qualities of this sort were in him subordinate to 
ethical aims and standards. The latter dominated 
a literary purpose which makes his essays interesting 
to those who enjoy letters not for mere drudgery 
nor for dilettanteism ; for in literature, as well as in 
life, the minor graces and virtues were held by him 
in subordination. He made sure of the main things, 
and took so much of the rest as came along with 
them. 

For the moral element is the central one in Lowell 
— the one around which all the others crystallize. In 
support of that, satire was a weapon ; for the sake 
of that, love shows its most beautiful aspects ; to 
strengthen that, scholarship is turned on the most 
healthful subjects ; to secure that, poetry glorifies 



82 American Song. 

public virtue. Even strong love for genius is re- 
pressed, when its utterance might appear to extol 
weak character. 

Together with this moral element, and springing 
from it, goes, closely connected, Lowell's insight, 
which made him not only a writer of powerful verse, 
and an appreciative student of the genius of the best 
poets, but also a critic of political life, and a man of 
felicity and high success as a foreign minister. 

With some American authors, especially with Poe, 
one perusal gives all that the general reader can 
profit by ; but Lowell, even when familiar, is an 
author still to be read ; and in the extension alike of 
scholarship and of national integrity, his power will 
yet be useful. For the future, his literary essays 
have surely fruit to bear — perhaps most of their 
fruit — in the labor of others : for, with the study of 
the best modern literature, will go on in this country 
the examination of his literary observations. His 
poetry is largely unassimilated by the mass of Ameri- 
can readers, and calls for greater depth and intensity 
of study than have ever been given. 

Special references : Lowell's Poetical Works and Heartsease and 
Rue. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Norton's Letters of Lowell. Har- 
pers. Underwood's The Poet and the Man, Houghton, Mifflin 
&Co. 

ODE. 

I. 

In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder,^ 
The Poet's song with blood-warm truth was rife ; 
' Cf. VviiiQvihQxciS Arte of English Poesie, 



Lowell. 83 

He saw the mysteries which circle under 

The outward shell and skin of daily life. 
Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, 

His soul was led by the eternal law ; 
There was in him no hope of fame, no passion, 

But with calm, godhke eyes he only saw. 
He did not sigh o'er heroes dead and buried, 

Chief-mourner at the Golden Age's hearse, 
Nor deem that souls whom Charon^ grim had ferried 

Alone were fitting themes of epic verse : 
He could believe the promise of to-morrow, 

And feel the wondrous meaning of to-day ; 
He had a deeper faith in holy sorrow 

Than the world's seeming loss could take away. 
To know the heart of all things was his duty, 

All things did sing to him to make him wise, 
And with a sorrowful and conquering beauty. 

The soul of all looked grandly from his eyes. 
He gazed on all within him and without him, 

He watched the flowing of Time's steady tide. 
And shapes of glory floated all about him 

And whispered to him, and he prophesied. 
Than all men he more fearless was and freer, 

And all his brethren cried with one accord, — 
" Behold the holy man ! Behold the Seer ! 

Him who hath spoken with the unseen Lord ! " 
He to his heart with large embrace had taken 

The universal sorrow of mankind. 
And, from that root, a shelter never shaken, 

The tree of wisdom grew with sturdy rind. 
He could interpret well the wondrous voices 

Which to the calm and silent spirit come ; 

' Charon, the ferryman in classic legend to the infernal regions. 



84 American Song. 



He knew that the One Soul no more rejoices 

In the star's anthem than the insect's hum. 
He in his heart was ever meek and humble, 

And yet with kingly pomp his numbers ran, 
As he foresaw how all things false should crumble 

Before the free, uplifted soul of man : 
And, when he was made full to overflowing 

With all the loveliness of heaven and earth, 
Out rushed his song, like molten iron glowing. 

To show God sitting by the humblest hearth. 
With calmest courage he was ever ready 

To teach that action was the truth of thought. 
And, with strong arm and purpose firm and steady, 

An anchor for the drifting world he wrought. 
So did he make the meanest man partaker 

Of all his brother-gods unto him gave ; 
All souls did reverence him and name him Maker, 

And when he died heaped temples on his grave. 
And still his deathless words of light are swimming 

Serene throughout the great deep infinite 
Of human soul, unwaning, and undimming. 

To cheer and guide the mariner at night. 



But now the Poet is an empty rhymer 

Who lies with idle elbow on the grass. 
And fits his singing, like a cunning timer. 

To all men's prides and fancies as they pass. 
Not his the song, which, in its metre holy. 

Chimes with the music of the eternal stars. 
Humbling the tyrant, lifting up the lowly, 

And sending sun through the soul's prison-bars. 



Lowell. 85 

Maker no more, — O no ! unmaker rather, 

For he unmakes who doth not all put forth 
The power given freely by our loving Father 

To show the body's dross, the spirit's worth. 
Awake ! great spirit of the ages olden ! 

Shiver the mists that hide thy starry lyre, 
And let man's soul be yet again beholden 

To thee for wings to soar to her desire. 
O, prophesy no more to-morrow's splendor, 

Be no more shamefaced to speak out for Truth, 
Lay on her altar all the gushings tender, 

The hope, the fire, the loving faith of youth ! 
O, prophesy no more the Maker's coming, 

Say not his onward footsteps thou canst hear 
In the dim void, like to the awful humming 

Of the great wings of some new-lighted sphere ! 
O, prophesy no more, but be the Poet ! 

This longing was but granted unto thee 
That, when all beauty thou should'st feel and know it, 

That beauty in its highest thou couldst be. 
O thou who moanest tost with sealike longings. 

Who dimly hearest voices call on thee, 
Whose soul is overfilled with mighty throngings 

Of love, and fear, and glorious agony, 
Thou of the toil-strung hands and iron sinews 

And soul by Mother Earth with freedom fed, 
In whom the hero-spirit yet continues. 

The old free nature is not chained or dead. 
Arouse ! let thy soul break in music-thunder, 

Let loose the ocean that is in thee pent. 
Pour forth thy hope, thy fear, thy love, thy wonder. 

And tell the age what all its signs have meant. 
Where'er thy wildered crowd of brethren jostles. 



86 American Song. 

Where'er there lingers but a shadow of wrong, 
There still is need of martyrs and apostles, 

There still are texts for never-dying song : 
From age to age man's still aspiring spirit 

Finds wider scope and sees with clearer eyes, 
And thou in larger measure dost inherit 

What made thy great forerunners free and wise. 
Sit thou enthroned where the Poet's mountain 

Above the thunder lifts its silent peak, 
And roll thy songs down like a gathering fountain. 

They all may drink and find the rest they seek. 
Sing ! there shall silence grow in earth and heaven, 

A silence of deep awe and wondering ; 
For, listening gladly, bend the angels even, 

To hear a mortal like an angel sing. 

III. 

Among the toil-worn poor my soul is seeking 

For who shall bring the Maker's name to light, 
To be the voice of that almighty speaking 

Which every age demands to do it right. 
Proprieties our silken bards environ ; 

He who would be the tongue of this wide land 
Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron 

And strike it with a toil imbrowned hand : 
One who hath dwelt with Nature well attended, 

Who hath learnt wisdom from her mystic books. 
Whose soul with all her countless lives hath blended, 

So that all beauty awes us in his looks ; 
Who not with body's waste his soul hath pampered. 

Who as the clear northwestern wind is free, 
Who walks with Form's observances unhampered, 

And follows the One Will obediently ; 



Lowell. 87 

Whose eyes, like windows on a breezy summit, 

Control a lovely prospect every way ; 
Who doth not sound God's sea with earthly plummet, 

And find a bottom still of worthless clay ; 
Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working, 

Knowing that one sure wind blows on above, 
And sees, beneath the foulest faces lurking, 

One God-built shrine of reverence and love ; 
Who sees all stars that wheel their shining marches 

Around the centre fixed of Destiny, 
Where the encircling soul serene o'erarches 

The moving globe of being like a sky ; 
Who feels that God and Heaven's great deeps are nearer 

Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh, 
Who doth not hold his soul's own freedom dearer 

Than that of all his brethren, low or high ; 
Who to the Right can feel himself the truer 

For being gently patient with the wrong. 
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer. 

And finds in Love the heart's-blood of his song ; — 
This, this is he for whom the world is waiting. 

To sing the beatings of its mighty heart, 
Too long hath it been patient with the grating 

Of scrannel-pipes, * and heard it misnamed Art. 
To him the smiling soul of man shall listen. 

Laying awhile its crown of thorns aside. 
And once again in every eye shall glisten 

The glory of a nature satisfied. 
His verse shall have a great commanding motion. 

Heaving and swelHng with a melody 
Learnt of the sky, the river, and the ocean. 

And all the pure, majestic things that be. 

' Scrannel, miserable ; a word not now in prose usage. 



88 American Song. 



Awake, then, thou ! we pine for thy great presence 

To make us feel the soul once more sublime. 
We are of far too infinite an essence 

To rest contented with the lies of Time. 
Speak out ! and lo ! a hush of deepest wonder 

Shall sink o'er all this many-voiced scene. 
As when a sudden burst of rattling thunder 

Shatters the blueness of a sky serene. 



TO CHARLES ELIOT NORTON.^ 



The wind is roistering out of doors, 

My windows shake and my chimney roars ; 

My Elmwood^ chimneys seem crooning to me, 

As of old, in their moody, minor key, 

And out of the past the hoarse wind blows. 

As I sit in my arm-chair, and toast my toes. 

"Ho ! ho ! nine-and-forty," they seem to sing, 

" We saw you a little toddling thing. 

We knew you child and youth and man, 

A wonderful fellow to dream and plan. 

With a great thing always to come, — who knows } 

Well, well ! 't is some comfort to toast one's toes. 

" How many times have you sat at gaze 
Till the mouldering fire forgot to blaze, 

' Charles Eliot Norton, writer on the fine arts and translator of 
Dante ; born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1829. 
^ Agro-dolce, bitter-sweet. 
^ Elmwood, the residence of the poet at Cambridge. 



Lowell. 89 

Shaping among the whimsical coals 
Fancies and figures and shining goals ! 
What matters the ashes that cover those ? 
While hickory lasts you can toast your toes. 

" O dream-ship-builder ! where are they all, 

Your grand three-deckers, deep-chested and tall, 

That should crush the waves under canvas piles, 

And anchor at last by the Fortunate Isles ? 

There 's gray in your beard, the years turn foes. 

While you muse in your arm-chair, and toast your toes." 

I sit and dream that I hear, as of yore, 

My Elmwood chimneys' deep-throated roar ; 

If much be gone, there is much remains ; 

By the embers of loss I count my gains. 

You and yours with the best, till the old hope glows 

In the fanciful flame, as I toast my toes. 

Instead of a fleet of broad-browed ships, 

To send a child's armada of chips ! 

Instead of the great guns, tier on tier, 

A freight of pebbles and grass-blades sere ! 

" Well, maybe more love with the less gift goes," 

I growl, as, half moody, I toast my toes. 



AUF WIEDERSEHEN ! ' 

SUMMER. 

The little gate was reached at last, 

Half hid in lilacs down the lane ; 
She pushed it wide, and, as she past, 

* Auf Wiedersehen, till we meet again. 



90 American Soitg, 

A wistful look she backward cast, 
And said, — " Auf Wiedersehen ! 



With hand on latch, a vision white 

Lingered reluctant, and again 
Half doubting if she did aright, 
Soft as the dews that fell that night, 
She said, — " Auf Wiedersehen ! " 

The lamp's clear gleam flits up the stair ; 

I linger in delicious pain ; 
Ah, in that chamber, whose rich air 
To breathe in thought I scarcely dare. 

Thinks she, — " Auf Wiedersehen ! " 

*T is thirteen years ; once more I press 
The turf that silences the lane ; 

I hear the rustle of her dress, 

I smell the lilacs, and — ah, yes, 
I hear '^ Auf Wiedersehen! " 

Sweet piece of bashful maiden art ! 

The English words had seemed too fain. 
But these — they drew us heart to heart. 
Yet held us tenderly apart ; 

She said, ^^ Auf Wiedersehen I " 




OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



Verse may have other aims than to convey aspira- 
tion ; it can serve to correct folly and to point the 
moral of better manners and better sense. Such an 
end satisfies towns-people ; they like to see their sen- 
timent of good-fellowship broadened and more 
thoroughly enlivened, as well as any eccentricity 
among them lopped away by the keen knife of ridi- 
cule. A poet who can do these things well, receives 
popularity, as Holmes does ; though Holmes is not 
this alone, being capable also in poetry of dealing 
with philosophical truth. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, August 29, 1809. He graduated at 
Harvard in 1829, and after several years' professional 
study in Europe, took his degree of Doctor of Medi- 
cine in 1836. For a part of his life he has been a 
professor of medicine, but for a still longer period a 
man of letters. His work as an author embraces 
poetry, prose, fiction, and the familiar essay. 

The Breakfast Table Series^ the best known 
among his prose writings, is, in certain ways, paral- 
leled in his verse. In both he treats of matters of 

91 



92 American Song, 

life which are to many of the community serious and 
important, — to that part especially whom we hear 
alluded to as having had the advantages of educa- 
tion, and who feel that they can profit by a rhymed 
sermon compounded to be at once palatable and 
electrical, but whose intellectual disinterestedness 
stops here. For to this part of the educated as well 
as the uneducated class, the savor of learning is bet- 
ter than the toil of scholarship, and it is a great deal 
easier ; to them, too, science is made to play with, 
rather than to work out, and a society that chats is 
far more satisfactory than one that is in earnest. 

Dr. Holmes understands all this, no one better. 
The unimaginative reader would make the mis- 
take of classifying the author as superficial ; let him 
try, then, to vie with the Autocrat ! The truth is, 
,that he must be at once a wit, a man of the world, 
and a gentleman, who can detect the absurd, ex- 
pose the pretentious, and denounce the vulgar as 
cleverly and unerringly as Holmes does. The keys 
to his satire are not so common that they are easily 
found and made use of. 

But Holmes is not a satirist alone. He has an eye 
for character, and especially for oddity. Witness 
his One Hoss Shay, Hoiv the Old Horse Won the 
Bet, and On Lending a Punch-Bowl, in which the 
humorous qualities of the subject chosen are woven 
into his work. His feelings overflow in another 
sense in the social verses At the Saturday Club, A 
Farewell to Agassiz, and The Semi-Cent ennial Cele- 
bration of the New England Society. The Opening of 
the Piano is also distinctive, but its smart point at 



Holmes. 93 

the close is in a style too much imitated later by 
writers for children. 

The verses on Dorothy Q. show the interest with 
which Holmes can surround what in itself is unin- 
teresting. Another view of women, La Grisette^ is 
piquant and sparkling, — one of Holmes's best. The 
lines dance along as heartily and merrily as the mind 
of the imaginary beholder, and as musically and 
harmoniously as rhythm should always run. Iris^ 
Her Book, is a poem dealing with a complex and 
usually uncomprehended nature, and in it Holmes 
evinces by the pathos he casts about it, to what 
length his strength and sympathy can go. 

The poet's feeling widens to patriotism both for 
New England and for other parts of his country. His 
lines on The Hudson, and on The Battle of Lexing- 
ton, are firm and sonorous. Union and Liberty is a 
song that the nation cannot afford to let die. 

A large part of Holmes's choicest work consists 
of short poems, but they are master-pieces of art. 
The little poem, The Last Leaf, has humor, pathos, 
and the fervor of frankness shifting and blending one 
into the other as gradually as the change of seasons, 
yet all subordinate with the modesty of art rather 
than obtrusive. The Last Leaf, so far as it goes, 
is one of the most perfect productions of Amer- 
ican verse. The Living Temple, on the other hand, 
being so physiological, does not in its matter fulfil 
the promise of the title. A writer, as here, may be 
hindered as well as aided by the time in which he 
lives ; and though Holmes now and then in the 
poem breaks through the materializing influence of 



94 American Song, 

science, The Living Temple is not a poem to be com- 
pared with The Chambered Nautilus. The latter is 
as varied as The Last Leafy and has also in its style 
grace, proportion, and dignity. Not perfect entirely, 
perhaps : but would that American literature were full 
of things as good ! It may safely be put side by 
side with poems of the same length from Shelley or 
Tennyson ; for it has the rare attributes of life, 
beauty, and atmosphere. 

Holmes possesses the power, which he does not 
often use, of writing longer poems without being 
trivial or didactic. Agnes is a graceful romance 
full of charming fancies. Wind Clouds and Star- 
Drifts is another poem that must be considered, in 
order to do justice to Holmes. In the part entitled 
"Ambition," the nobler manifestation of that desire 
is presented. In '■'Regrets'' we find traces of what 
Holmes might have become if he had been purely 
poet. The whole fancy, in short, is worth a very 
careful reading. 

Holmes, then, is the best of teachers in America to- 
day in regard to what is true wit and true feeling. 
He knows his readers ; he has made himself ac- 
quainted with their desires and their needs. He is 
also a manly writer; but besides being vigorous and 
energetic, he is practical and economical enough in 
the use of his intellectual material to secure from it 
the largest possible effectiveness. He proves some- 
times that he can be an artist in the use of language ; 
and now and then, if the reader will study him thor- 
oughly, he will find him grappling with the deepest 
spiritual problems. 
Special reference : Holmes's Poems. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 



Holmes, 95 

ON LENDING A PUNCH-BOWL. 

This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old 

times, 
Of joyous days, and jolly nights, and merry Christmas 

chimes ; 
They were a free and jovial race, but honest, brave, and 

true, 
That dipped their ladle in the punch when this old bowl 

was new. 

A Spanish galleon brought the bar ; so runs the ancient 
tale ; 

'T was hammered by an Antwerp smith, whose arm was 
like a flail ; 

And now and then between the strokes, for fear his 
strength should fail, 

He wiped his brow, and quaffed a cup of good old Flem- 
ish ale. 

'T was purchased by an English squire, to please his lov- 
ing dame. 

Who saw the cherubs, and conceived a longing for the 
same ; 

And oft as on the ancient stock another twig was found, 

'T was filled with caudle spiced and hot, and handed 
smoking round. 

But, changing hands, it reached at length a Puritan 

divine, 
Who used to follow Timothy, and take a little wine. 
But hated punch and prelacy ; and so it was, perhaps. 
He went to Leyden, where he found conventicles and 

schnaps. 



9^ American Song. 

And then, of course, you know what 's next, — it left the 

Dutchman's shore 
With those that in the Mayflower came, — a hundred souls 

and more, — 
Along with all the furniture, to fill their new abodes, — 
To judge by what is still on hand, at least a hundred 1 ads. 

'T was on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing 

dim, 
When brave Miles Standish took the bowl, and filled it to 

the brim ; 
The little Captain stood and stirred the posset with his 

sword, 
And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the 

board. 

He poured the fiery Hollands in, — the man that never 

feared, — 
He took a long and solemn draught, and wiped his 

yellow beard ; 
And one by one the musketeers — the men that fought 

and prayed — 
All drank as 't were their mother's milk, and not a man 

afraid. 

That night, affrighted from his nest, the screaming eagle 

flew. 
He heard the Pequot's ^ ringing whoop, the soldier's wild 

halloo ; 
And there the sachem learned the rule he taught to kith 

and kin : 
" Run from the white man when you find he smells of 

Hollands gin ! " 
' Pequot, an ancient tribe of Indians in New England. 



Holmes. 97 

A hundred years, and fifty more, had spread their leaves 

and snows, 
A thousand rubs had flattened down each Httle cherub's 

nose, 
When once again the bowl was filled, but not in mirth or 

joy, 

'T was mingled by a mother's hand to cheer her parting 
boy. 

Drink, John, she said, 't will do you good, — poor child, 

you '11 never bear 
This working in the dismal trench, out in the midnight 

air ; 
And if, God bless me ! — you were hurt, 't would keep 

away the chill ; 
So John did drink, — and well he wrought that night at 

Bunker's Hill ! 

I tell you, there was generous warmth in good old English 

cheer ; 
I tell you 't was a pleasant thought to bring its symbol 

here ; 
'T is but the fool that loves excess ; hast thou a drunken 

soul ? 
Thy bane is in thy shallow skull, not in my silver bowl ! 

I love the memory of the past, — its pressed yet fragrant 

flowers, — 
The moss that clothes its broken walls, — the ivy on its 

towers ; — 
Nay, this poor bawble it bequeathed, — my eyes grow 

moist and dim. 
To think of all the vanished joys that danced around its 

brim. 

7 



9^ American Song. 

Then fill a fair and honest cup, and bear it straight to me ; 
The goblet hallows all it holds, whate'er the liquid be ; 
And may the cherubs on its face protect me from the sin, 
That dooms one to those dreadful words : " My dear, 
where have you been ? " 



THE LAST LEAF. 

I saw him once before. 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound, 
As he totters o'er the ground 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime, 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 
By the Crier ^ on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And he looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 
And he shakes his feeble head, 
That it seems as if he said, 

"They are gone." 

* Crier, a former official in this country, who gave public notices 
by loud proclamation. 



Holmes. 99 



The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said — 
Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago, 
That he had a Roman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 

But now his nose is thin, 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff, 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 

In his laugh. 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here ; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 
And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer ! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, 
Let them smile as I do now. 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 



loo American Song. 

THE STETHOSCOPE SONG. 

A PROFESSIONAL BALLAD. 

There was a young man in Boston town, 

He bought him a Stethoscope ' nice and new, 

AH mounted and finished and polished down. 
With an ivory cap and a stopper too. 

It happened a spider within did crawl, 

And spun him a web of ample size, 
Wherein there chanced one day to fall 

A couple of very imprudent flies. 

The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue. 

The second was smaller, and thin and long ; 

So there was a concert between the two. 
Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. 

Now being from Paris but recently. 

This fine young man would show his skill ; 

And so they gave him, his hand to try, 
A hospital patient extremely ill. 

Some said that his liver was short of bile, 
And some that his heart was over size. 

While some kept arguing all the while 

He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. 

This fine young man then up stepped he, 
And all the doctors made a pause ; 

1 Stethoscope, a medical instrument for learning, by its application 
to the chest, the condition of internal organs. 



Holmes. loi 

Said he, — The man must die, you see, 
By the fifty-seventh of Louis's ^ laws. 

But since the case is a desperate one, 
To explore his chest it may be well ; 

For if he should die and it were not done, 
You know the autopsy would not tell. 

Then out his stethoscope he took, 

And on it placed his curious ear ; 
Mon Dieu ! said he, with a knowing look. 

Why here is a sound that 's mighty queer ! 

The bourdonnement^ is very clear, — 

Amphoric buzzing^ as I 'm alive ! 
Five doctors took their turn to hear ; 

Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. 

There 's empyema beyond a doubt ; 

We '11 plunge a trocar ^ in his side,— 
The diagnosis was made out, 

They tapped the patient ; so he died. 

Now such as hate new-fashioned toys 

Began to look extremely glum ; 
They said that rattles were made for boys. 

And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. 

' Antoine Louis, a celebrated French surgeon, born at Metz in 

1723. 
^ Bourdonnement^ a buzzing sound like that of an insect. 
^ Trocar, a surgical instrument for evacuating fluids from cavities. 



I02 American Song. 

There was an old lady had long been sick, 
And what was the matter none did know ; 

Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick ; 
To her this knowing youth must go. 

So there the nice old lady sat, 
With phials and boxes all in a row ; 

She asked the young doctor what he was at, 
To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. 

Now when the stethoscope came out. 

The flies began to buzz and whiz ;- 
O ho ! the matter is clear, no doubt ; 

An aneurism there plainly is. 

The bruit de rape ^ and the bruit de scie * 
And the bruit de diable ^ are all combined ; 

How happy Bouillaud ^ would be. 
If he a case like this could find ! 

Now, when the neighboring doctors found 

A case so rare had been descried, 
They every day her ribs did pound 

In squads of twenty ; so she died. 

Then six young damsels, slight and frail. 
Received this kind young doctor's cares ; 

They all were getting slim and pale. 
And short of breath on mounting stairs. 

' Bruit de rape, \ 
Bruit de scie \ "^^^ young doctor is alluding to medical 

Bruit de diable, [ ^y^Pto^s. ^^z Foster's Medical Diet., Bruit. 

^ Jean Baptiste Bouillaud, professor of clinics in the Medical 
Faculty of Paris, born at Angouleme in 1796. 



Holmes. 103 

They all made rhymes with " sighs " and " skies," 
And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, 

And dieted much to their friend's surprise. 
On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. 

So fast their little hearts did bound, 

The frightened insects buzzed the more ; 

So over all their chests he found 
The rale sifflant^ and rale sonore} 

He shook his head ; — there 's grave disease, — 

I greatly fear you all must die ; 
A sli^t post-mortem^ if you please, 

Surviving friends would gratify. 

The six young damsels wept aloud. 
Which so prevailed on six young men, 

That each his honest love avowed, 
Whereat they all got well again. 

This poor young man was all aghast ; 

The price of stethoscopes came down ; 
And so he was reduced at last 

To practise in a country town. 

The doctors being very sore, 

A stethoscope they did devise, 
That had a rammer to clear the bore, 

With a knob at the end to kill the flies. 

Now use your ears, all you that can. 

But don't forget to mind your eyes. 
Or you may be cheated, like this young man, 

By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. 

' Rdle sijfflant \ Other symptoms. See, as before, Foster's 
JRdle sonore ) Medical Diet., Rdles. 



I04 American Song. 

Summary. 

Even though there is still no little difference of 
opinion on the subject, it may be well to endeavor 
to form some comparative estimate of the poets in 
the present group. The poetic attainment of each 
may not differ much in rank from that of any other, 
and yet it may be of advantage to inquire into their 
individual merits. 

Can we say that among these poets Poe holds 
the first place ? So far from this being true, it may 
be doubted with good grounds whether any one of 
the others were not more a poet than he. It would 
be incorrect, however, to reach this conclusion, as has 
sometimes been done, by alleging merely his defi- 
ciency in grasp of the social and political needs of the 
community ; it is rather because his lines usually lack 
the element of feeling, which is almost an essential in 
good poetry. 

Unlike Poe, Emerson, at his best, has feeling of a 
high quality, yet Emerson's best verse is a very small 
part of his verse ; and, after all, Emerson is chiefly 
an essayist. 

Bryant is more even. He will bear careful study, 
and is, possibly, for one who wishes to train himself 
in the art of versification, the finest model ^ among 
all those poets who were his congeners. Yet Bry- 
ant's song is hardly ever heard when he comes out 
of his woods ; he is not distinctively a poet of human 
society. 

^ Longfellow, who is broader and stronger, is probably not so 
excellent a model for the student. 



Holmes. 105 

The question may be asked, in this connection, 
how among the others Holmes stands ? In a writer 
of such perennial vigor, who is still living, it is hap- 
pily too early to estimate his performance ; but his 
humor makes him far from the least memorable of 
the group. 

As to Whittier, his merit over Bryant is that he 
has more passion. His fault, if it be one, is that he 
is partisan. 

Jones Very has a place and consideration apart. 
His spiritual poise of mind, however, would seem to 
place him above Whittier, while his lack of poetic 
observation on the real world of men would prevent 
him from being named as the equal of Lowell or 
Longfellow. 

Lowell, on the other hand, has throughout his life 
been among men, and has made his writings a part 
of their lives. Scarcely a poem, or, indeed, a prose 
writing of his, but shows his genius ; a genius not 
only large and versatile, but sane in its influence, 
and when stopping a moment to jest, at once serious 
again. Yet Lowell has not such art as Longfellow ; 
he is a great man writing poetry, rather than a poet 
pure and simple. 

Longfellow has the imagination of the fireside. 
He has sung songs of home, or told homely stories 
of distant lands that are favorites the world over. 
So familiar has he become, that there is hardly any 
one of education, at least in this country, who has not 
felt his influence. Such a one must indeed be a poet 
of a large part of human life, one to whom has been 
granted a deep and thorough vision of humanity. 



io6 American Song. 

Yet none of these, if we compare them with the 
foremost in history, is fairly entitled to be called a 
great poet. For the execution reached here has been 
hardly more than lyric ; beyond this compass lie the 
drama and the epic with their fierce play and heat of 
passion, which American poets thus far have hardly 
touched. 





2. (For the three following poets, cf, under the gen- 
eral introduction to " Contemporaries T^ 



WALT WHITMAN. 



Walt Whitman's songs, as he calls them, have not 
the technical requirements of poetry ; on the other 
hand, his rhythmical lines have sometimes in their 
content and in their style certain poetical qualities 
to an unusual degree. 

Walt Whitman was born at West Hills, Long 
Island, New York, May 31, 18 19. He went to 
school in New York City, and learned also the print- 
ers' and carpenters' trades. Later, he taught school, 
edited newspapers, was a hospital nurse in the war 
of 1 86 1, and afterwards became a government clerk 
at Washington. During his life he travelled exten- 
sively on foot through the United States. 

For the magnitude of his vision Whitman owes 
much to Homer, to Shakespeare, and to the Book of 
Job. He was also largely influenced by Emerson's 
essays, whose independence and exaggeration he 

107 



io8 American Song. 

has imitated. The most important source for his 
genius is his observation of American barbarism, as 
he terms it. He embodies his sense of this in vivid 
imagery ; imagining frequently and boldly that 
America and himself possess the same traits,— pride, 
carelessness, and generous receptivity. 

The subjects of Whitman's verse are the great ele- 
mental forces of nature, — the sound of the sea, the 
lapse of time, or the blaze of the sun ; the United 
States with its men, trades, and cities ; and the ex- 
perience of the author, as he wanders out-of-doors, 
great-hearted in his sentiment for men. 

Certain of Whitman's poems are deservedly 
famous : notably those on President Lincoln, O 
Captain^ My Captain, and When Lilacs Last in the 
Dooryard Bloomed; O Star of France \ and among pas- 
sages there is almost a visible splendor in that part 
of the Song of Myself , beginning " I understand the 
large hearts of heroes," and including the description 
of the rescuing ship, of the slave, and of the fire- 
man ; and in the lines following, which tell the story 
of the sea-fight. 

The fact that Whitman is a poet who excels by 
passages, makes it specially fit to select his shortest 
poems, which are found most nearly to fulfil the 
artistic conditions of proportion and unity. It may 
be observed, also, that these poems are not widely 
open to charges of extravagance. As to their sev- 
eral species, some are simple, gentle, loving, as The 
First Dandelion, The Ship Starting, Sometimes with 
One I Love, What Think You L Take my Pen in Hand? 
Recorders, Ages Hence. Others are full of manly dis- 



Whitman. 109 

dain, — To a Certain Civilian and Not Youth Pertains 
to Me, with its half serious close : — 

''Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me, — yet there are 

two or three things inure to me, 
I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a 

dying soldier, 
And at intervals waiting or in the midst of camp 

composed these songs." 

Some are descriptive with ideal truth underneath, 
such as / saw Old General at Bay, and Delicate Cluster. 
Others, again, display fancy, as The Dying Veteran, 
and Yonnondio, the last ending impressively; and one, 
at least. Aboard at a Ship's Helm, has imagination. 

Whitman had a mind of great power, — so far he 
ought to have the homage that he has received at 
home as well as from abroad. Still we may be not 
less firm in believing, on account of his disregard of 
the broad canons of literary form, and still more of 
ideas, that praise of him should be moderate, 
although, with less disdain of literary form he would 
certainly have been a much larger and more impor- 
tant figure in American literature than he can now 
be considered. 



THE FIRST DANDELION. 

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging, 
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever 

been, 
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass — innocent, 

golden, calm as the dawn, 
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face. 



no American Song, 

THE SHIP STARTING. 

Lo, the unbounded sea, 
On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying 

even her moonsails. 
The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so 

stately — below emulous waves press forward, 
They surround the ship with shining curving motions 

and foam. 

WHAT THINK YOU I TAKE MY PEN IN HAND ? 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record ? 

The battle-ship, perfect-model'd, majestic, that I saw pass 

the offing to-day under full sail ? 
The splendors of the past day ? or the splendor of the 

night that envelops me ? 
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread 

around me ? — no ; 
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in 

the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear 

friends. 
The one to remain hung on the other's neck and passion- 
ately kiss'd him, 
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in 

his arms. 

SOMETIMES WITH ONE I LOVE. 

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear 

I effuse unreturn'd love. 
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love, the pay is 

certain one way or another, 
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not 

return'd, 
Yet out of that I have written these songs.) 



Whitman. 



Ill 



RECORDERS AGES HENCE. 

Recorders ages hence, 

Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive 

exterior, I will tell you what to say of me, 
Publish my name and hand up my picture as that of the 

tenderest lover, 
The friend the lover's portrait, of whom his friend his 

lover was fondest. 
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless 

ocean of love within him, and freely pour'd it 

forth. 
Who often walk'd lonesome walks thinking of his dear 

friends, his lovers. 
Who pensive away from one he lov'd often lay sleepless 

and dissatisfied at night, 
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he 

lov'd might secretly be indifferent to him. 
Whose happiest days were far away through fields, in 

woods, on hills, he and another wandering, hand in 

hand, they twain apart from other men. 
Who oft as he saunter'd the streets curv'd with his arm 

the shoulder of his friend, while the arm of his 

friend rested upon him also. 

TO A CERTAIN CIVILIAN. 

Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me ? 

Did you seek the civilian's peaceful and languishing 
rhymes ? 

Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow ? 

Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to un- 
derstand, — nor am I now ; 

(I have been born of the same as the war was born, 



112 American Song. 

The drum-corps' rattle is ever to me sweet music, I love 
well the martial dirge, 

With slow wail and convulsive throb leading the officer's 
funeral ;) 

What to such as you anyhow such a poet as I ? there- 
fore leave my works, 

And go lull yourself with what you can understand, and 
with piano-tunes. 

For I lull nobody, and you will never understand me. 



NOT YOUTH PERTAINS TO ME. 

Not youth pertains to me. 

Nor delicatesse, I cannot beguile the time with talk, 
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant. 
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still, for 

learning inures not to me, 
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me — yet there are two or 

three things inure to me, 
I have nourish'd the wounded and sooth'd many a dying 

soldier. 
And at intervals waiting, or in the midst of camp, 
Composed these songs. 

I SAW OLD GENERAL AT BAY. 

I saw old General at bay, 

(Old as he was, his gray eyes yet shone out in battle like 
stars), 

His small force was now completely hemm'd in, in his 
works. 

He call'd for volunteers to run the enemy's lines, a des- 
perate emergency, 



Whitman. 



"3 



I saw a hundred and more step forth from the ranks, but 

two or three were selected, 
I saw them receive their orders aside, they listen'd with 

care, the adjutant was very grave, 
I saw them depart with cheerfulness, freely risking their 

lives. 

DELICATE CLUSTER. 

Delicate cluster ! flag of teeming life ! 

Covering all my lands — all my sea-shores lining ! 

Flag of death ! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of 

battle pressing ! 
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant !) 
Flag cerulean — sunny flag, with the orbs of night dappled ! 
Ah my silvery beauty — ah my woolly white and crimson ! 
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty ! 
My sacred one, my mother. 

THE DYING VETERAN. 

(A Long Island incident — early part of the present century.) 

Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity, 

Amid the current songs of beauty, peace, decorum, 

I cast a reminiscence (likely 't will offend you, 

I heard it in my boyhood ;) — More than a generation 

since, 
A queer old savage man, a fighter under Washington 

himself, 
(Large, brave, cleanly, hot-blooded, no talker, rather 

spiritualistic, 
Had fought in the ranks— fought well — had been all 

through the Revolutionary war,) 



114 American Song. 

Lay dying — sons, daughters, church-deacons, lovingly 

tending him, 
Sharping their sense, their ears, towards his murmuring, 

half-caught words : 
" Let me return again to my war-days, 
To the lights and scenes — to forming the line of battle, 
To the scouts ahead reconnoitering, 
To the cannons, the grim artillery ; 
To the galloping aids, carrying orders. 
To the wounded, the fallen, the heat, the suspense. 
The perfume strong, the smoke, the deafening noise ; 
Away with your life of peace !— your joys of peace ! 
Give me my old wild battle-Hfe again ! " 

YONNONDIO. 

(The sense of the word is lament for the aborigines. It is an Iro- 
quois term, and has been used for a personal name.) 

A song, a poem of itself — the word itself a dirge, 
Amid the wilds, the rocks, the storm and wintry night. 
To me such misty, strange tableaux the syllables calling 

up; 
Yonnondio — I see, far in the west or north, a limitless 

ravine, with plains and mountains dark, 
I see swarms of stalwart chieftains, medicine-men, and 

warriors, 
As flitting by like clouds of ghosts, they pass and are 

gone in the twilight, 
(Race of the woods, the landscapes free, and the falls ! 
No picture, poem, statement, passing them to the future :) 
Yonnondio ! Yonnondio ! — unlimn'd they disappear ; 
To-day gives place and fades — the cities, farms, factories 

fade ; 



Whitman. 115 

A muffled sonorous sound, a wailing word is borne 

through the air for a moment, 
Then blank and gone and still, and utterly lost. 

ABOARD AT A SHIP'S HELM. 

Aboard at a ship's helm, 

A young steersman steering with care. 

Through fog on a sea-coast dolefully ringing, 

An ocean bell — O a warning bell, rock'd by the waves. 

O, you give good notice indeed, you bell by the sea- 
reefs ringing, 
Ringing, ringing, to warn the ship from its wreck-place. 

For as on the alert, O steersman, you mind the loud 

admonition, 
The bows turn, the freighted ship tacking speeds away 

under her gray sails. 
The beautiful and noble ship with all her precious wealth 

speeds away gayly and safe. 

But O the ship, the immortal ship ! O ship aboard the 

ship ! 
Ship of the body, ship of the soul, voyaging, voyaging, 

voyaging. 




BAYARD TAYLOR. 



The career of Bayard Taylor possesses both an 
historical and a personal interest. It is worth while 
to note, in passing, the historical interest of his work, 
even through those of his literary efforts which were 
not a complete success, because in some of his pro- 
ductions of this nature he was chiefly a pioneer, as in 
his plays, his novels, and in a portion of his lyrics. 
Others of his shorter poems have a greater literary 
worth, because they exhibit Taylor himself, who, as 
a writer, was, above everything else, sincere. These 
shorter poems are chiefly on the subject of love, 
though occasionally the poems of a traveller. 

Bayard Taylor was born at Kennet Square, Penn., 
January ii, 1825. In 1842 he became apprentice to 
a printer; in 1844-45 niade a pedestrian tour in 
Europe; in 1849 visited California, and in 1851 set 
out on his first tour through the East. During the 
succeeding ten years he made various long journeys, 
descriptions of which were given in a series of spirited 
and informing books of travel. He did good work 
for journals, principally for the New York Tribune, 
He died December 19, 1878, in Berlin, to which capi- 
tal he had been appointed minister from the United 

116 



Taylor. n; 

States. At the time of his death he was engaged 
upon a life of Goethe. 

Of his lyric poems, which are the most interesting, 
The Poet in the East is one of Taylor's happiest con- 
ceits. The rhythm is delicate, the imagination at- 
tended by fancy, and the mood and place close to 
the poet's heart. Of kindred love poems. On the Sea 
well suggests the poetic influence of night on the 
water, and Proposal is characterized by a strong 
abruptness. True Love's Time of Day could have 
been written by no one but a man of exceeding sen- 
sitiveness. Possession is firm in its love fancies. The 
Bedouin Song has been popular, but it is of a cheaper 
texture than the others. In his poems on love, it is 
the confidence and presumption of that passion that 
Taylor expresses, not its shrinking and bashfulness. 
Among poems on other subjects, Hassan to His 
Mare would be an ideal expression of love for a pet 
animal, were it not marred by the close of the sec- 
ond stanza; while the lines On Leaving California 
could not have been truer to California feeling. Into 
his lesser lyrics he infused a warmth and richness of 
color which is drawn from his own healthy nature, 
and which heightened the glow of his work. His 
odes are talented performances ; the Centennial Ode 
is something more ; but in none of them has he 
shown such special adaptation, as was possessed by 
Lowell, for this kind of poetry. 

The Picture of St. John and Lars, though not 
well known, are by no means failures. Assuredly, 
a long poem as successfully sustained as the former 
is must always command respect from persons of 



ii8 American Song. 

poetic taste ; and all through it Taylor shows that he 
had really lived in and breathed the art atmosphere 
of Italy. Lars opens with a classic carefulness and 
beauty in its suggestive descriptions. The picture 
of Brita is nobly done. As a whole the poem is un- 
equal and rather long, but in the better parts has 
sturdiness and originality. The translation of Faust 
should be mentioned because it has been ranked with 
the great translations of literature, and could have 
been produced only by a writer who possessed, with 
poetic understanding, original power. 

Taylor has not proved to posterity that he was a 
man of genius. That he had poetic taste and talent, 
however, to an unusual degree is indubitable. A 
greater poet would have combined the grace and 
severity of the New England school with Taylor's 
free and democratic sympathy for many styles and 
subjects. Yet Taylor, besides being a representa- 
tive in poetry of certain parts of the American 
genius, remains an historic figure as a man of letters. 



THE POET IN THE EAST. 

The Poet came to the Land of the East, 

When spring was in the air : 
The Earth was dressed for a wedding feast, 

So young she seemed, and fair ; 
And the Poet knew the Land of the East, — 

His soul was native there. 

All things to him were the visible forms 
Of early and precious dreams, — 



Taylor, 119 



Familiar visions that mocked his quest 

Beside the Western streams, 
Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled 

In the sunset's dying beams. 

He looked above in the cloudless calm, 

And the Sun sat on his throne ; 
The breath of gardens, deep in balm, 

Was all about him blown, 
And a brother to him was the princely Palm, 

For he cannot live alone. 

His feet went forth on the myrtled hills, 
And the flowers their welcome shed ; 

The meads of milk-white asphodel 
They knew the Poet's tread. 

And far and wide, in a scarlet tide, 
The poppy's bonfire spread. 

And, half in shade and half in sun. 

The Rose sat in her bower, 
With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart — 

She had waited for the hour ! 
And, like a bride's, the Poet kissed 

The lips of the glorious flower. 

Then, the Nightingale, who sat above 

In the boughs of the citron-tree. 
Sang : We are no rivals, brother mine. 

Except in minstrelsy ; 
For the rose you kissed with the kiss of love 

Is faithful still to me. 



I20 American Song. 

And further sang the Nightingale : 

Your bower not distant lies. 
I heard the sound of a Persian lute 

From the jasmined window rise, 
And, twin-bright stars, through the lattice°bars, 

I saw the Sultana's eyes. 

The Poet said : I will here abide, 

In the Sun's unclouded door ; 
Here are the wells of all delight 

On the lost Arcadian shore : 
Here is the light on sea and land. 

And the dream deceives no more. 



ON LEAVING CALIFORNIA. 

O fair young land, the youngest, fairest far 
Of which our world can boast, — 

Whose guardian planet, Evening's silver star 
Illumes thy golden coast, — 



How art thou conquered, tamed in all the pride 

Of savage beauty still ! 
How brought, O panther of the splendid hide, 

To know thy master's will ! 



No more thou sittest on thy tawny hills 

In indolent repose ; 
Or pour'st the crystal of a thousand rills 

Down from the house of snows. 



Taylor. 



121 



But where the wild oats wrapped thy knees in gold, 

The plowman drives his share, 
And where, through canons deep, thy streams are rolled, 

The miner's arm is bare. 

Yet in thy lap, thus rudely rent and torn, 

A nobler seed shall be : 
Mother of mighty men, thou shalt not mourn 

Thy lost virginity ; 

Thy human children shall restore the grace 

Gone with thy fallen pines : 
The wild, barbaric beauty of thy face 

Shall round to classic lines. 

And Order, Justice, Social Law shall curb 

Thy untamed energies ; 
And Art and Science, with their dreams superb, 

Replace thine ancient ease. 

The marble, sleeping in thy mountains now. 

Shall live in sculptures rare ; 
Thy native oak shall crown the sage's brow, — 

Thy bay, the poet's hair. 

Thy tawny hills shall bleed their purple wine, 

Thy valleys yield their oil ; 
And Music, with her eloquence divine, 

Persuade thy sons to toil. 

Till Hesper, as he trims his silver beam. 

No happier land shall see, 
And earth shall find her old Arcadian dream 

Restored again in thee. 



SIDNEY LANIER. 



Among the American poets of the younger gener- 
ation who have passed away during the last thirty 
years, no one deserves higher encomium than Lanier. 
Materially, fate pinched him, but whether oppressed 
by misfortune or cheered by success, he never lost 
the poetic fire within. 

Sidney Lanier was born at Macon, Georgia, Febru- 
ary 3, 1842. His earliest poems are not among his 
best ; although some of his verse in dialect exhibits a 
humor which was repressed in his later literary pro- 
duction, and Nirvana is more successful in seriousness 
than is often the case with an early poem by a cele- 
brated author. 

There is something about the verse of Lanier — 
defective as his performance is, — for it must be ac- 
knowledged that he was not always equal in clear- 
ness and literary judgment, — that inspires respect 
from every lover of genius. Even where he was not 
perfect, he showed, as in Corn, that he had grasped 
firmly the distinction in poetics between the small 
and the great. Beside this rare attainment, or gift, 
whichever it was, Lanier, even in early work, had 
reached a power of imagination that may be com- 

122 



Lanier, . 123 

pared not unfavorably with that of Longfellow be- 
tween his thirty-third and thirty-seventh years ; in the 
minor matters of verbal imagination and onomato- 
poeia Lanier was at times greatly Longfellow's 
superior. 

Lanier's merits as a poet are numerous and con- 
siderable. A large nature like his could not express 
itself trivially or in narrow limits. He has done well 
in the treatment of love, philosophy, mysticism, 
socialism, in the ballad, and technically in melody 
and harmony of rhythm. 

This is not to say that he has excelled in all points 
alike or equally. My Springs is one of Lanier's most 
beautiful love songs ; its subject is not, as a general 
thing, too commonly or too well treated. Lanier's 
work elsewhere is full of the tenderest love passages. 
Yet it is not in dealing with love that he is pre- 
eminent. 

Nor is it so on the dubious ground of poetry 
carrying a philosophical message. Here Lanier is at 
fault not only from the possibly inherent difficulty 
of such themes, but because of his own lack of spe- 
cial study in this direction. Clover is one of the 
plainest of these didactic poems ; but in this as in 
others, is obtruded too conscious alliteration. 

So, too, in Lanier's employment of mysticism. 
There is really no good reason, theoretically or prac- 
tically, why a mystical subject is not suitable for 
poetry, provided only the obstacles be surmounted. 
Lanier's Acknowledgmeyit is of that sort of mysticism 
which when uttered with any fulness in poetry is 
always deserving of esteem ; even though Lanier, or 



124 American Song. 

any other American poet, has not yet adjusted 
poetry to the satisfactory reflection of abstract re- 
ligious thought. 

It is in the deep music of Lanier's line that his 
greatness is to be found. Compare the Symphony^ 
the Revenge of Hamish, or the Marshes of Glynn 
with the best previous American verse ; say Long- 
fellow's Evangeline or Hiawatha^ Lowell's Commem- 
oration Ode, and Whittier's Barbara Frietchie. In 
harmony of sound, I believe, Lanier should have the 
preference ; he was a musician primarily, they were 
not. That the knack of music in poetry is less im- 
portant than the perfect expression of the finest and 
noblest ideas, makes him on the whole their inferior. 
Even so, he marks an epoch in American verse that 
makes his position unique, exceptional, and historic. 
For poetry at its highest worth must not only con- 
sist of the best ideas and conceptions, but must 
flow in the best rhythm. Yet the best rhythm is not 
easy or frequent. It exists as an art only seldom in 
a language. The best rhythm has depth ; it underlies 
the line rather than floats on its surface. Its masters 
in English verse are in the foremost place, the 
Elizabethan dramatists ; also Milton, and secondarily 
Tennyson. Pope or Dryden did not have it ; they 
had rather the knack of a grasshopper-like metre that 
skips jerkily forth here and there. No one of Ameri- 
can poets previous to Lanier possessed fully the 
stronger rhythm. Lanier has it, not perhaps at its 
virile best, and often mixed with something artificial 
from his own preconceptions ; but he has it after all 
now and then, and has it clearly and strongly. 



Lanier. 125 

Lanier*s line is generous. There are deep places 
in it ; the reader takes a long breath, for the poet 
prefers not only the amplitude of the pentameter, 
but often adds an additional syllable. 

In the development of his verse, Lanier finds many 
new harmonies. The Marshes of Glynn shows almost 
a coloring of sound. This poem, as others of 
Lanier's, is a work of imagination, and deals not only 
with single shapes, but with masses. Tampa Robbins 
is a vivid study also of musical sensation. The Re- 
venge of Hamish is, perhaps, to be placed higher than 
the Symphony and the rest of Lanier's poems, on ac- 
count of its force, its concreteness, its verbal imagina- 
tion, and its vigorous style. 

After years of protracted struggle with a vital 
malady, Lanier died at Lynn, N. C, Sept. 7, 1881. 
As he was then only thirty-nine, but had still shown 
pre-eminent individual attainment, his powers, it may 
be fairly assumed, had not reached their full height. 
The little poem. Opposition, indicates what might 
have been the outcome, morally, in his verse. He 
was naturally hopeful, but as far from shallow 
optimism as from shallow pessimism. His own 
physical and intellectual pain afforded him experi- 
ence which was transmuted into sympathy for the 
suffering of others. For himself, he was triumphantly 
joyous through his own trials ; while for others 
he knew that bitter compassion that perplexes while 
it sustains the best Christianity of to-day. 



Special References : Lanier's Poetical Works ^ with an introduc- 
tion by W. H. Ward. Chas. Scribner's Sons. 



126 American Song, 

THE REVENGE OF HAMISH. 

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the 
bracken lay ; 
And all of a sudden the sinister smell of a man, 
Awaft on a wind-shift, wavered and ran 
Down the hill-side and sifted along through the bracken 
and passed that way. 

Then Nan got a-tremble at nostril ; she was the dainti- 
est doe ; 
In the print of her velvet flank on the velvet fern 
She reared, and rounded her ears in turn. 
Then the buck leapt up, and his head as a king's to a 
crown did go. 

Full high in the breeze, and he stood as if Death had 
the form of a deer ; 
And the two slim does long lazily stretching arose. 
For their day-dream slowlier came to a close. 
Till they woke and were still, breath-bound with wait- 
ing and wonder and fear. 

Then Alan the huntsman sprang over the hillock, the 
hounds shot by, 
The does and the ten-tined buck made a marvellous 

bound. 
The hounds swept after with never a sound. 
But Alan loud winded his horn in sign that the quarry 
was nigh. 

For at dawn of that day proud Maclean of Lochbuy to 
the hunt had waxed wild, 
And he cursed at old Alan till Alan fared off with 
the hounds 



Lanier, 127 

For to drive him the deer to the lower glen-grounds : 
" I will kill a red deer " quoth Maclean, " in the sight of 
the wife and the child." 

So gayly he paced with the wife and the child to his 
chosen stand ; 
But he hurried tall Hamish the henchman ahead : 

" Go turn," 
Cried Maclean — " if the deer seek to cross to the burn, 
Do thou turn them to me : nor fail, lest thy back be as 
red as thy hand." 

Now hard-fortuned Hamish, half blown of his breath 
with the height of the hill. 
Was white in the face when the ten-tined buck and the 

does 
Drew leaping to burn-ward ; huskily rose 
His shouts and his nether lip twitched, and his legs 
were o'er-weak for his will. 

So the deer darted lightly by Hamish and bounded away 
to the burn. 
But Maclean never bating his watch tarried waiting 

below. 
Still Hamish hung heavy with fear for to go 
All the space of an hour ; then he went, and his face was 
greenish and stern, 

And his eye sat back in the socket, and shrunken the eye- 
balls shone. 
As withdrawn from a vision of deeds it were shame to 
see. 



128 A^nerican Song. 

" Now, now, grim henchman, what is 't with thee ?" 
Brake Maclean, and his wrath rose red as a beacon the 
wind hath upblown. 

"Three does and a ten-tined buck made out," spoke 
Hamish, full mild, 
" And I ran for to turn, but my breath it was blown, 

and they passed ; 
I was weak, for ye called ere I broke me my fast." 
Cried Maclean : " Now a ten-tined buck in the sight of 
the wife and the child 

I had killed if the gluttonous kern had not wrought me a 
snail's own wrong ! " 
Then he sounded and down came kinsmen and clans- 
men all : 
" Ten blows, for ten tine, on his back let fall. 
And reckon no stroke if the blood follow not the bite of 
the thong ! " 

So Hamish made bare, and took him his strokes ; at the 
last he smiled. 
" Now I '11 to the burn," quoth Maclean, " for it still 

may be, 
If a slimmer-paunched henchman will hurry with me, 
I shall kill me the ten-tined buck for a gift to the wife 
and the child ! " 



Then the clansmen departed, by this path and that ; and 
over the hill 
Sped Maclean with an onward wrath for an inward 
shame : 



Lanier. 129 

And that place of the lashing full quiet became ; 
And the wife and the child stood sad ; and blood-backed 
Hamish sat still. 

But look ! red Hamish has risen ; quick about and about 
turns he. 
" There is none betwixt me and the crag-top ! " he 

screams under breath. 
Then, livid as Lazarus lately from death, 
He snatches the child from the mother, and clambers the 
crag toward the sea. 

Now the mother drops breath ; she is dumb, and her 
heart goes dead for a space, 
Till the motherhood, mistress of death, shrieks, 

shrieks through the glen, 
And that place of the lashing is live with men, 
And Maclean, and the gillie that told him, dash up in a 
desperate race. 

Not a breath's time for asking ; an eye-glance reveals 
all the tale untold. 
They follow mad Hamish afar up the crag toward the 

sea, 
And the lady cries : " Clansmen, run for a fee ! — 
Yon castle and lands to the two first hands that shall 
hook him and hold 



Fast Hamish back from the brink ! " — and ever she flies 
up the steep, 
And the clansmen pant, and they sweat, and they 
jostle and strain. 



130 American Song, 

But, mother, 't is vain ; but, father, 't is vain ; 
Stern Hamish stands bold on the brink, and dangles the 
child o'er the deep. 

Now a faintness falls on the men that run, and they all 
stand still. 
And the wife prays Hamish as if he were God, on her 

knees. 
Crying : " Hamish ! O Hamish ! but please, but 
please 
For to spare him ! " and Hamish still dangles the child, 
with a wavering will. 

On a sudden he turns ; with a sea-hawk scream, and a 
gibe, and a song. 
Cries : " So ; I will spare ye the child if, in sight of ye 

all, 
Ten blows on Maclean's bare back shall fall, 
And ye reckon no stroke if the blood follow not at the 
bite of the thong ! " 

Then Maclean he set hardly his tooth to his lip that his 
tooth was red. 
Breathed short for a space, said : " Nay, but it never 

shall be ! 
Let me hurl off the damnable hound in the sea ! " 
But the wife : " Can Hamish go fish us the child from 
the sea, if dead ? 

Say yea ! — Let them lash me, Hamish ? " — " Nay ! " — 
" Husband, the lashing will heal ; 
But, oh, who will heal me the bonny sweet bairn in his 
grave ? 



Lanier. 131 

Could ye cure me my heart with the death of a 
knave ? 
Quick ! love ! I will bare thee — so — kneel ! " Then 
Maclean 'gan slowly to kneel 

With never a word, till presently downward he jerked to 
the earth. 
Then the henchman — he that smote Hamish — would 

tremble and lag ; 
" Strike, hard ! " quoth Hamish, full stern, from the 
crag; 
Then he struck him, and " One ! " sang Hamish, and 
danced with the child in his mirth. 

And no man spake beside Hamish ; he counted each 
stroke with a song. 
When the last stroke fell, then he moved him a pace 

down the height. 
And he held forth the child in the heartaching 
sight 
Of the mother, and looked all pitiful grave, as repenting 
a wrong. 

And there as the motherly arms stretched out with the 
thanksgiving prayer — 
And there as the mother crept up with a fearful swift 

pace, 
Till her finger nigh felt of the bairnie's face — 
In a flash fierce Hamish turned round and lifted the 
child in the air, 

And sprang with the child in his arms from the horrible 
height in the sea. 



132 American Song, 

Shrill screeching, " Revenge ! " in the wind-rush ; and 

pallid Maclean, 
Age-feeble with anger and impotent pain, 
Crawled up on the crag, and lay flat, and locked hold of 
dead roots of a tree — 

And gazed hungrily o'er, and the blood from his back 
drip — dripped in the brine, 
And a sea-hawk flung down a skeleton fish as he 

flew. 
And the mother stared white on the waste of blue, 
And the wind drove a cloud to seaward, and the sun 
began to shine. 



SONG OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE. 

Out of the hills of Habersham, 
Down the valleys of Hall, 
I hurry amain to reach the plain, 
Run the rapid and leap the fall. 
Split at the rock and together again, 
Accept my bed, or narrow or wide 
And flee from folly on every side 
With a lover's pain to attain the plain 
Far from the hills of Habersham, 
Far from the valleys of Hall. 

All down the hills of Habersham, 

All through the valleys of Hall, 

The rushes cried Abide, abide, 

The wilful waterweed held me thrall. 

The laving laurel turned my tide. 

The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay^ 



Lanier. 133 

The dewberry dipped for to work delay, 
And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide. 
Here in the hills of Habersham, 
Here in the valleys of Hall. 

High o'er the hills of Habersham, 
Veiling the valleys of Hall, 
The hickory told me manifold 
Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall 
Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, 
The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, 
Overleaning with flickering meaning and sign, 
Said : Pass not, so cold, these manifold. 
Deep shades of the hills of Habersham, 
These glades in the valleys of Hall. 

And oft in the hills of Habersham, 

And oft in the valleys of Hall, 

The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone 

Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl. 

And many a luminous jewel lone — 

Crystals clear or a cloud with mist 

Ruby, garnet, and amethyst — 

Made lures with the lights of streaming stone 

In the cleft of the hills of Habersham, 

In the beds of the valleys of Hall. 

But oh, not the hills of Habersham, 
And oh, not the valleys of Hall, 
Avail ; I am fain for to water the plain. 
Downward the voices of Duty call — 
Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main. 
The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn. 



134 American So?ig. 

And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, 
And the lordly main from beyond the plain 
Calls o'er the hills of Habersham, 
Calls through the valleys of Hall. 

TAMPA ROBINS/ 

The robin laughed in the orange-tree : 
" Ho, windy North, a fig for thee : 
While breasts are red and wings are bold 
And green trees wave us globes of gold, 
Time's scythe shall reap but bliss for me 
— Sunlight, song, and the orange-tree. 

" Burn, golden globes in leafy sky. 
My orange-planets : crimson I 
Will shine and shoot among the spheres 
(Blithe meteor that no mortal fears) 
And thrid the heavenly orange-tree 
With orbits bright of minstrelsy. 

" If that I hate wild winter's spite — 
The gibbet trees, the world in white, 
The sky but gray wind over a grave — 
Why should I ache, the season's slave ? 
I '11 sing from the top of the orange-tree 
Gramercy, winter's tyranny. 

" I '11 south with the sun and keep my clime ; 
My wing is king of the summer-time ; 
My breast to the sun his torch shall hold ; 
And I '11 call down through the green and gold 
Time, take thy scythe, reap bliss for me, 
Bestir thee under the orange-tree'' 

^ Tampa, a bay on the west side of Florida. 



PART II. 
I. Forerunners. 

In a brief general survey of the field of what I 
will call prae-classic American literature, discussion 
of that portion containing the works of writers of 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries can hardly 
be either interesting in itself or fertile in its results. 
Among the commonplace of those times, a gleam of 
personality appeared only occasionally in poetry, as 
in a lyric of Freneau's like The Wild Honeysuckle. 

It is different with authors during the first genera- 
tion in the nineteenth century. In the rarity of the 
intellectual atmosphere, literature was still beginning 
to form. In prose, Irving and Cooper had originated 
American fiction. In poetry, Bryant, both by ex- 
ample and by precept, was pointing the way onward, 
though Bryant's early development in poetic art 
makes it necessary to consider him not here but 
among the *' Classics." 

Other producers of verse at this time were quite 
various in merit. Very few of them left a lasting 
name, and are principally interesting historically. 
Some of them, such as Sprague and Neal, are now 
indeed nothing more than names. Others are more 

135 



13^ A^nerican Song, 

fortunate through possessing associations which en- 
able their fame to survive. R. H. Dana was formerly 
called a critic and a poet ; he is now known as 
Bryant's friend, and as one of those who had the 
best poetical judgment among the men of his time. 
Drake wrote The American Flag and The Culprit 
Fay; but we seem to know more of the man him- 
self by reading concerning him his associate Halleck's 
memorial lines. Percival will be far more likely to 
be remembered through Lowell's essay on Percival 
than by all the poetry he himself ever wrote. Such 
are a few of the attitudes with which Time surveys 
those writers who in their own day had been greeted 
with loud applause ! 

Two of the " Forerunners," however, have left a 
fame that is more than shadowy. Here the men 
behind the works come out distinctly as literary 
figures ; and the name of each stands for a person- 
ality that is quite remarkable. The first of the two, 
in point of time as well as of poetic ability, Fitz- 
Greene Halleck, was the finest and most typical poet 
of that day.^ In collaboration with Drake he printed 
in 1 8 19, under the title of The Croakers^ a series of 
poetical satires upon public characters of the period, 
a series which achieved an immediate local fame ; but 
Halleck is now better known by Marco Bozzaris and 
Burns. His own character may still better keep him 
a lasting name. He lacked, however, the intellectual 
independence and the creative genius which is un- 
hindered by the wearing and destructive effect of 
drudgery. The other writer, Willis, was a man of 

' Bryant is a poet of the century. 



Forerunners, 137 

definite and, on the whole, pleasing personality, a 
man whose light, chatty manner covered a heart and 
a will that made him a favorite ; but Willis, still less 
than Halleck, had the genius which constitutes a 
great writer. 

A strong extrinsic interest and importance, how- 
ever, attaches to the group as a whole ; in them, 
better than in those writers whose works are more 
read by posterity, — Bryant, Longfellow, Lowell, and 
their compeers, — are seen the unfavorable and de- 
teriorating literary conditions in this country during 
the first half of the century. The '' Forerunners " 
show, for example, what the consequences were, of 
writers in the earlier part of the century not finding 
letters alone sufBcient for a livelihood. For it may 
be observed that the '' Forerunners" preferred, instead 
of the letters, the livelihood ; whereas, it maybe said, 
that among the " Classics," Poe, who lived during this 
period, preferred, as seen by his suffering and death, 
instead of the liveHhood, the letters, Another dis- 
advantage was that foreign influences, especially 
imitation of foreign models, were too strong as com- 
pared with native inspiration ; and this ill wind blew 
no good, so far as independent thought was con- 
cerned, to the writers of either group. 

Since, therefore, no writer of this group escaped 
the literary disadvantages of that time, a study of 
the group, while interesting in itself, will also dispel 
the glamor which, hanging over the success of the 
** Classics," hides the difficulties under which the 
members of the latter group contended and which 
they so largely overcame ; and it will justly be in- 



138 American Song, 

ferred that the '' Classics," too, must have been ham- 
pered and prevented from attaining a greater height. 
And if the study of the *' Forerunners " enables a stu- 
dent to realize this fact, it will have done no slight 
thing ; for it will have opened his eyes to the truth 
that genius is exposed to at least as many difficul- 
ties as talent, and will lead him a long way from a 
merely admiring view of renowned poets to a critical 
consideration of their permanent value as modified 
by the time and conditions in which they lived. 



PHILIP FRENEAU. 



Philip Freneau was the most distinguished poet 
of the revolutionary time. He was born at New 
York, January 2, 1752, and was a graduate of Prince- 
ton College. Part of his life was spent in journalism 
and book-writing, part of it on the sea. He served 
with conspicuous patriotism in the army during the 
Revolution, during which he was taken prisoner. 
Freneau found a subject for his verse in his personal 
knowledge of the war. He died near Freehold, N. 
J., December 18, 1832. 

Freneau is of interest as one of the first poets in 
America to show signs of personality in literary 
style. His verse in general may also be studied as 
helping to the knowledge of the literary conditions 
of the time, and as showing the crudity of taste then 
that was, however, mitigated somewhat by the 
study here and there of the eighteenth-century 
poets of England. 



THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE. 

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, 
Hid in this silent, dull retreat. 

Untouched thy honied blossoms blow. 

Unseen thy little branches greet ; 

i?9 



HO American Song, 



No roving foot shall crush thee here, 
No busy hand provoke a tear. 

By Nature's self in white arrayed, 

She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, 
And planted here the guardian shade, 

And sent soft waters murmuring by ; 

Thus quietly thy summer goes, 

Thy days declining to repose. 

Smit with those charms, that must decay, 
I grieve to see thy future doom ; 

They died — nor were those flowers more gay, 
The flowers that did in Eden bloom ; 
Unpitying frosts and Autumn's power, 
Shall leave no vestige of this flower. 

From morning suns and evening dews, 

At first thy little being came ; 
If nothing once, you nothing lose, 

For when you die you are the same ; 

The space between is but an hour, 

The frail duration of a flower. 




RICHARD HENRY DANA. 



Richard Henry Dana was one of the earliest 
lovers of poetry in this country who at the same 
time wrote good poetry himself. Dana was born 
at Cambridge, Mass., August 15, 1787. He entered 
Harvard, and later practised law. In childhood he 
had acquired a love of nature ; in youth he devel- 
oped passion for contemplation ; and in full man- 
hood he became at his time a leading exponent of 
the higher intellectual life, striving to propagate a 
taste in America for the then recently published 
works of Wordsworth and Coleridge. Dana's poetic 
study effected his own accomplishments in verse, 
which in their spiritual purpose were good, and in 
their descriptions of places familiar to him, were 
sincere and true. Dana died at Boston, February 2, 
1879. 

THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD. 

Thou little bird, thou dweller by the sea, 
Why takest thou thy melancholy voice, 
And with that boding cry 
O'er the waves dost thou fly ? 
Oh ! rather, bird, with me 
Through the fair land rejoice ! 
141 



142 American Song, 

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale, 

As driven by a beating storm at sea ; 

Thy cry is weak and scared, 

As if thy mates had shared 

The doom of us. Thy wail, — 

What doth it bring to me ? 

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, 

Restless and sad ; as if, in strange accord 

With the motion and the roar 

Of waves that drive to shore. 

One spirit did ye urge — 

The Mystery — the Word. 

Of thousands, thou, both sepulchre and pall 
Old ocean ! A requiem o'er the dead 
From out thy gloomy cells 
A tale of mourning tells, — 
Tells of man's woe and fall. 
His sinless glory fled. 

Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight 
Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring 
Thy spirit never more. 
Come, quit with me, the shore 
For gladness and the light 
Where birds of summer sing. 




FITZ-GREENE HALLECK. 



Fitz-Greene Halleck was one of the most famous 
poets of his day. He was born at Guilford, Conn., 
July 8, 1790. His education and his business 
vocation were not favorable to his development as a 
poet ; and his inspiration seems rather to have been 
secondary than original, being imparted by personal 
contact with his friend Drake or by the reading of 
foreign poets, such as Burns and Campbell. Bryant, 
whose criticism of his intimates was sometimes less 
sure than friendly, has praised Halleck highly, but 
he is hardly read now. A few of his poems, however, 
such as Burns, are full of fine, manly passages ; and 
of his nobility as a man his memorial exists in the 
reminiscences and in the biographies of him by his 
friends. 



BURNS.^ 



Wild rose of Alloway,'^ my thanks ; 

Thou 'mindst me of that autumn noon 

^ Robert Burns, a celebrated Scotch poet, born near the town of 
Ayr, in 1759. 

^ Alloway ICirk, the scene of Burns's Tarn <?' Shanter, is situated 
near the poet's birthplace. 

143 



144 American Song, 

When first we met upon " the banks 
And braes' o' bonny Doon." ^ 

Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough, 
My sunny hour was glad and brief. 

We 've crossed the winter sea, and thou 
Art withered — flower and leaf. 

And wilt not thy death-doom be mine — 
The doom of all things wrought of clay — 

And withered my life's leaf like thine, 
Wild rose of Alloway ? 

Not so his memory, for whose sake 
My bosom bore thee far and long, 

His — who a humbler flower could make 
Immortal as his song. 

The memory of Burns — a name 

That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, 

A nation's glory in her shame, 
In silent sadness up. 

A nation's glory- — be the rest 

Forgot — she's canonized his mind ; 

And it is joy to speak the best 
We may of human kind. 

I 've stood beside the cottage-bed 
Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath ; 

A straw-thatched roof above his head, 
A straw-wrought couch beneath. 

* Braey declivity or broken ground. 

2 Boon, a river not far from the birthplace of Burns, flowing into 
the Firth of Clyde. 



Halleck. 145 

And I have stood beside the pile, 
His monument — that tells to Heaven 

The homage of earth's proudest isle 
To that Bard-peasant given ! 

Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot, 
Boy-minstrel, in thy dreaming hour ; 

And know, however low his lot, 
A Poet's pride and power ; 

The pride that lifted Burns from earth. 
The power that gave a child of song 

Ascendancy o'er rank and birth. 
The rich, the brave, the strong ; 

And if despondency weigh down 

Thy spirit's fluttering pinions, then 
Despair — thy name is written on 

The roll of common men. 

There have been loftier themes than his, 
And longer scrolls, and louder lyres, 

And lays lit up with Poesy's 
Purer and holier fires. 

Yet read the names that know not death ; 

Few nobler ones than Burns' are there ; 
And few have won a greener wreath 

Than that which binds his hair. 

His is that language of the heart. 

In which the answering heart would speak, 

Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, 
Or the smile light the cheek ; 



14^ America7^ Song. 

And his that music, to whose tone 

The common pulse of man keeps time, 

In cot or castle's mirth or moan, 
In cold or sunny clime. 

And who hath heard his song, nor knelt 
Before its spell with willing knee. 

And listened, and believed, and felt 
The Poet's mastery. 

O'er the mind's sea, in calm and storm, 
O'er the heart's sunshine and its showers, 

O'er Passion's moments bright and warm, 
O'er Reason's dark, cold hours ; 

On fields where brave men ^' die or do," 
In halls where rings the banquet's mirth, 

Where mourners weep, where lovers woo. 
From throne to cottage-hearth ? 

What sweet tears dim the eye unshed. 
What wild vows falter on the tongue. 

When " Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," 
Or " Auld Lang Syne " is sung ! 

Pure hopes that lift the soul above, 

Come with his Cotter's hymn of praise. 

And dreams of youth, and truth, and love, 
With " Logan's " ^ banks and braes. 

And when he breathes his master-lay 
Of AUoway's witch-haunted wall, 

^ Logan Water, a rivulet in the parish of Kirkpatrick, Fleming, 
Scotland, celebrated in modern and ancient Scottish song. 



Halleck. 147 



All passions in our frames of clay- 
Come thronging at his call. 

Imagination's world of air, 

And our own world, its gloom and glee, 
With pathos, poetry, are there, 

And death's sublimity. 

And Burns, though brief the race he ran, 
Though rough and dark the path he trod, 

Lived — died — in form and soul a Man, 
The image of his God. 

Through care, and pain, and want, and woe. 
With wounds that only death could heal. 

Tortures — the poor alone can know, 
The proud alone can feel ; 

He kept his honesty and truth, 
His independent tongue and pen. 

And moved, in manhood as in youth. 
Pride of his fellow men. 

Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong, 

A hate of tyrant and of knave, 
A love of right, a scorn of wrong, 

Of coward and of slave ; 

A kind, true heart, a spirit high, 

That could not fear and would not bow, 

Were written in his manly eye 
And on his manly brow. 

Praise to the bard ! his words are driven, 
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown. 



148 American Song. 

Where'er, beneath the sky of heaven, 
The birds of fame have flown. 

Praise to the man ! a nation stood 

Beside his coffin with wet eyes, 
Her brave, her beautiful, her good. 

As when a loved one dies. 

And still as on his funeral-day. 

Men stand his cold earth-couch around, 

With the mute homage that we pay 
To consecrated ground. 

And consecrated ground it is. 

The last, the hallov/ed home of one 

Who lives upon all memories. 
Though with the buried gone. 

Such graves as his are pilgrim-shrines. 
Shrines to no code or creed confined — 

The Delphian ^ vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind. 

Sages, with wisdom's garland wreathed, 

Crowned kings, and mitred priests of power. 

And warriors with their bright swords sheathed. 
The mightiest of the hour ; 

And lowlier names, whose humble home 

Is lit by fortune's dimmer star. 
Are there — o'er wave and mountain come. 

From countries near and far ; 

* Delphi, the ancient oracle of Apollo, at the foot of Mount Par- 
nassus m Greece. 



Hal leek, 149 

Pilgrims whose wandering feet have pressed 
The Switzer's snow, the Arab's sand, 

Or trod the piled leaves of the West, 
My own green forest-land. 

All ask the cottage of his birth, 

Gaze on the scenes he loved and sung. 

And gather feelings not of earth 
His fields and streams among. 

They linger by the Boon's low trees, 
And pastoral Nith,' and wooded Ayr,* 

And round thy sepulchres, Dumfries ! * 
The Poet's tomb is there. 

But what to them the sculptor's art, 

His funeral columns, wreaths, and urns? 

Wear they not graven on the heart 
The name of Robert Burns ? 

' Nith, a river flowing from Ayr into Solway Firth, eight miles 
south of Dumfries. 

^ Ayr, see note on Burns. 

^ Dumfries. Burns lived here during the latter part of his life, 
and his remains were transferred hither. 





JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. 



The life of Joseph Rodman Drake was cut short 
at the age of twenty-five. He showed, however, an 
early ability in the creation of fanciful poetry that 
gave him a place among the writers of his time. 
Drake was born in New York City, August 17, 
1795. His first important literary undertaking was 
the part he took in the " Croaker" papers, but more 
interesting now, however, are his American Flag and 
The Culprit Fay. Drake died in New York, Sep- 
tember 21, 1820. 

THE AMERICAN FLAG. 

When Freedom from her mountain height 
Unfurled her standard to the air, 
She tore the azure robe of night. 
And set the stars of glory there. 
She mingled with its gorgeous dyes 
The milky baldric of the skies. 
And striped its pure celestial white 
With streakings of the morning light ; 
Then from his mansion in the sun 
She called her eagle bearer down, 
150 



Drake. 151 



And gave into his mighty hand 
The symbol of her chosen land. 

Majestic monarch of the cloud, 
Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, 
To hear the tempest trumpings loud 
And see the lightning lances driven, 
When strive the v/arriors of the storm, 
And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven, 
Child of the sun ! to thee 't is given 
To guard the banner of the free, 
To hover in the sulphur smoke, 
To ward away the battle stroke. 
And bid its blendings shine afar. 
Like rainbows on the cloud of war, 
The harbingers of victory ! 

Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly. 
The sign of hope and triumph high. 
When speaks the signal trumpet tone, 
And the long line comes gleaming on. 
Ere yet the life-blood warm and wet. 
Has dimmed the glistening bayonet. 
Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
To where thy sky-born glories burn. 
And, as his springing steps advance, 
Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
Heave in wild wreaths the battle-shroud. 
And gory sabres rise and fall 
Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall. 
Then shall thy meteor glances glow. 
And cowering foes shall sink beneath 



152 American Song, 

Each gallant arm that strikes below 
That lovely messenger of death. 

Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave ; 
When death, careering on the gale, 
Sweeps darkly round the bellied sail. 
And frighted waves rush wildly back 
Before the broadside's reeling rack, 
Each dying wanderer of the sea 
Shall look at once to heaven and thee. 
And smile to see thy splendors fly 
In triumph o'er his closing eye. 

Flag of the free heart's hope and home ! 
By angel hands to valor given ; 
Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
And all thy hues were born in heaven. 
Forever float that standard sheet ! 
Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? 



JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 



James Gates Percival was a man of uncommon 
miscellaneous acquirements. He had an aptitude and 
a fluency for writing verse, but he suffered his facil- 
ity to run unfettered so that his poetry had a ten- 
dency to wordiness and superficiality. Occasionally, 
however, in the description of quiet, beautiful scenes 
of simple nature, his success is commensurate with 
his attempt. Percival was born at Berlin, Conn., 
September 17, 1795, and died at Hazel Green, Wis,, 
May 2, 1856. 



TO A BUTTERFLY. 

Thou, who in the early spring 
Hoverest on filmy wing. 
Visiting the bright-eyed flowers, 
Fluttering in loaded bowers, 
Settling on the reddening rose. 
Reddening ere it fully blows, 
When its crisp and folded leaves 
Just unroll their dewy tips, 
Soft as infant beauty's lips. 
Or anything that love believes — 
153 



154 American So7ig, 



Little Wanderer after pleasure, 
Where is that enchanted treasure 
All that live are seeking for ? 
Is it in the blossom, or 
Where we seek it, in the roses 
Of a maiden's cheek, or rather 
In the many lights that gather 
When her smiling lip uncloses ? 
Wouldst thou rather kiss a flower, 
When 't is dropping with a shower, 
Or with trembling, quivering wing. 
Rest thee on a dearer thing, 
On a lip that has no stain, 
On a brow that feels no pain, 
In the beamings of an eye. 
Where a world of visions lie, 
Such as to the blest are given. 
All of heaven — all of heaven ? 
If thou lovest the blossom, I 
Love the cheek, the lip and eye. 




GEORGE POPE MORRIS. 



Morris was pre-eminently a writer of song. He 
was born at Philadelphia, October lo, 1802, and died 
at New York, July 6, 1864. Morris is strong in the 
expression of simple sentiments, such as are assured 
of the ready sympathy of the people. Of his poems, 
Woodman^ Spare that Tree ! is the best known ; of 
others, his Song of Marion's Men is meritorious as a 
stirring and native ballad. These two poems and a 
few others will live with the songs of the nation, 
while his more ambitious efforts are already forgot- 
ten. 



WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREE ! 



Woodman, spare that tree ! 

Touch not a single bough ! 
In youth it sheltered me. 

And I '11 protect it now. 
'T was my forefather's hand 

That placed it near his cot ; 
There, woodman, let it stand, 

Thy axe shall harm it not. 
155 



156 American Song, 



That old, familiar tree, 

Whose glory and renown 
Are spread o'er land and sea — 

And would'st thou hew it down ? 
Woodman, forbear thy stroke, 

Cut not its earth-bound ties ; 
Oh, spare that aged oak, 

Now towering to the skies ! 

When but an idle boy, 

I sought its grateful shade ; 
In all their gushing joy 

Here, too, my sisters played. 
My mother kissed me here ; 

My father pressed my hand — 
Forgive this foolish tear, 

But let that old oak stand ! 

My heart-strings round thee cling, 

Close as thy bark, old friend ; 
Here shall the wild-bird sing. 

And still thy branches bend. 
Old tree ! the storm still brave ! 

And, woodman, leave the spot ; 
While I 've a hand to save. 

Thy axe shall harm it not. 




NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS. 



Nathaniel Parker Willis was a voluminous author, 
half dilettante, half in earnest, who held a leading 
position in his day in the literary society of New 
York. Willis was born at Portland, Maine, January 
20, 1806. He was graduated at Yale, travelled 
abroad, edited journals in New York, and published 
volumes of light prose under such titles as Sketches, 
Pencillings, Inklings, Loiterings, etc. He was for 
a number of years associated with his friend Morris 
in editing the Home Journal of New York. His 
taste is lighter than that of most of his contem- 
poraries of equal attainment, but for an idle hour 
his books are still pleasant reading, and have a value 
as pictures of the society of the time. The selection 
here given belongs to his more serious vein. Willis 
died January 20, 1867, at his cottage on the Hud- 
son, near Newburgh, from which many of his sketches 
had been dated. 



157 



15^ American So7^g, 

IDLENESS. 

" Idleness sweet and sacred." 

— Walter Savage Landor. ^ 

" When you have found a day to be idle, be idle for a 

day. 
When you have met with three cups to drink, drink your 

three cups." 

The rain is playing its soft, pleasant tune 
Fitfully on the skylight, and the shade 
Of the fast flying clouds across my book 
Passes with gliding change. My merry fire 
Sings cheerfully to itself, my musing cat 
Purrs as she wakes from her unquiet sleep, 
And looks into my face as if she felt 
Like me, the gentle influence of the rain. 
Here I have sat since morn, reading sometimes. 
And sometimes listening to the faster fall 
Of the large drops, or rising with the stir 
Of an unbidden thought, have walked awhile, 
With the slow steps of indolence, my room. 
And then sat down composedly again 
To my quaint book of olden poetry. 

It is a kind of idleness, I know ; 
And I am said to be an idle man — 
And it is very true, I love to go 
Out in the pleasant sun, and let my eye 
Rest on the human faces that pass by, 
Each with its gay or busy interest : 

' Walter Savage Landor, an eminent English author, born at 
Ipsley Court, Warwickshire, in 1775. 



Willis. 159 

And then I muse upon their lot, and read 
Many a lesson in their changeful cast, 
And so grow kind of heart, as if the sight 
Of human beings bred humanity. 
And I am better after it, and go 
More grateful to my rest, and feel a love 
Stirring my heart to every living thing ; 
And my low prayer has more humility ; 
And I sink lightliei to my dreams — and this, 
'T is very true, is only idleness. 

I love to go and mingle with the young 

In the gay festal room — where every heart 

Is beating faster than the merry tune, 

And their blue eyes are restless, and their lips 

Parted with eager joy, and their round cheeks 

Flushed with the beautiful motion of the dance. 

And I can look upon such things, and go 

Back to my solitude, and dream bright dreams 

For their fast coming years, and speak of them 

Earnestly in my prayer, till I am glad 

With a benevolent joy — and this, I know, 

To the world's eye is only idleness. 

And when the clouds pass suddenly away. 

And the blue sky is like a newer world. 

And the sweet growing things — forest and flower, 

Humble and beautiful alike — are all 

Breathing up odors to the very heaven — 

Or when the frost has yielded to the sun 

In the rich autumn, and the filmy mist 

Lies like a silver lining on the sky, 

And the clear air exhilarates, and life 

Simply is luxury — and when the hush 

Of twilight, like a gentle sleep, steals on, 



i6o American Song, 

And the birds settle to their nests, and stars 
Spring in the upper sky, and there is not 
A sound that is not low and musical — 
At all these pleasant seasons, I go out 
With my first impulse guiding me, and take 
Wood-path or stream, or slope by hill or vale, 
And in my recklessness of heart stray on, 
Glad with the birds and silent with the leaves, 
And happy with the fair and blessed world — 
And this, 't is true, is only idleness ! 

And I should like to go up to the sky, 
And course the heavens, like stars, and float away 
Upon the gliding clouds that have no stay. 
In their swift journey — and 'twould be a joy 
To walk the chambers of the deeps and tread 
The pearls of its untrodden floor, and know 
The tribes of the unfathomable depths — 
Dwellers beneath the pressure of a sea ! 
And I should love to issue with the wind 
On a strong errand, and o'er-sweep the earth 
With its broad continents and islands green, 
Like to the passing of a spirit on ! 
And this, 't is true, were only idleness. 



CHARLES FENNO HOFFMAN. 



During his earlier working years, Hoffman was 
one of the leading magazine writers of New York, and 
a facile writer of verse in various styles. He was born 
at New York in 1806. He studied at Columbia Col- 
lege and was admitted to the bar, but soon gave up 
the law for a literary career which he continued un- 
til the loss of his mind caused his permanent retire- 
ment to an asylum. He died at Harrisburg, Penn- 
sylvania, June 7, 1884. 

Under a mask of conventionality, Hoffman's verse 
reveals the nature of the man, buoyant, convivial, 
emotional, enthusiastic. This vivacity, however, is 
at times so gay as to seem to prophesy his sad 
end. Yet there were other things in Hoffman than 
mere lightness of spirit. He could work and work 
disinterestedly in a public cause ; and the poem 
Monterey shows strength as well as a flashing intrepi- 
dity of spirit. 



MONTEREY. 



We were not many — we who stood 

Before the iron sleet that day ; 
Yet many a gallant spirit would 



161 



1 62 American Song, 

Give half his years if he then could 
Have with us been at Monterey. 

Now here, now there, the shot, it hailed 

In deadly drifts of fiery spray. 
Yet not a single soldier quailed 
When wounded comrades round them wailed 
Their dying shout at Monterey. 

And on — still on our column kept 

Through walls of flames its withering way ; 
Where fell the dead, the living stept, 
Still charging on the guns which swept 
The slippery streets of Monterey. 

The foe himself recoiled aghast, 

When striking where the strongest lay. 
We swooped his flanking batteries past. 
And braving full their murderous blast. 
Stormed home the towers of Monterey. 

Our banners on those turrets wave. 

And there our evening bugles play ; 
Where orange boughs above their grave 
Keep green the memory of the brave 
Who fought and fell at Monterey. 

We are not many — we who press'd 

Beside the brave who fell that day ; 
But who of us has not confessed 
He 'd rather share their warrior rest. 
Than not have been at Monterey 1 



ALBERT PIKE. 



Albert Pike attempted much ; he succeeded some- 
times. Pike was born at Boston, Massachusetts, 
December 29, 1809. He entered Harvard, left for 
want of means, taught, travelled, edited, was a 
soldier, and after a long life died April 2, 1891. 

Pike's best known poem is Dixie, Among the rest, 
perhaps the best in execution is Every Year. Pike's 
heartiness made his southern song a favorite even 
among veteran Union soldiers. Every Year has 
much of the same style of unselfishness and zeal. 
There is something noble, pure, and glorious about 
his lines that makes them of ideal value. 



EVERY YEAR. 

Life is a count of losses, 

Every year ; 
For the weak are heavier crosses 

Every year ; 
Lost Springs with sobs replying 
Unto weary Autumn's sighing, 
While those we love are dying. 

Every year. 
163 



1 64 American Song. 

The days have less of gladness 

Every year j 
The nights more weight of sadness 

Every year ; 
Fair Springs no longer charm us, 
The winds and weather harm us, 
The threats of death alarm us, 

Every year. 

There come new cares and sorrows 

Every year ; 
Dark days and darker morrows, 

Every year ; 
The ghosts of dead loves haunt us, 
The ghosts of changed friends taunt us, 
And disappointments daunt us. 

Every year. 

To the past go more dead faces 

Every year, 
As the loved leave vacant places. 

Every year ; 
Everywhere the sad eyes meet us. 
In the evening's dusk they greet us. 
And to come to them entreat us. 

Every year. 

" You are growing old," they tell us, 

Every year ; 
"You are more alone," they tell us. 

Every year ; 
" You can win no new affection. 
You have only recollection, 



Pike. 165 

Deeper sorrow and dejection, 
Every year." 

Too true ! Life's shores are shifting 

Every year ; 
And we are seaward drifting 

Every year ; 
Old places, changing, fret us, 
The living more forget us. 
There are fewer to regret us. 

Every year. 

But the truer life draws nigher 

Every year ; 
And its morning-star climbs higher. 

Every year ; 
Earth's hold on us grows slighter. 
And the heavy burthen lighter, 
And the Dawn Immortal brighter, 

Every year. 





FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. 



Frances Sargent Osgood was the first woman to 
write good poetry in this country. She was born at 
Boston, Massachusetts, June i8, 1811. She wrote 
poetry young, married, lived in England for several 
years, and returned to New England. She died at 
Hingham, Massachusetts, May 12, 1850. Several 
collections of her poems were published. She is 
especially successful with short poems of a character 
ardent, arch, and dreamy, such as A Dancing Girly 
Calumny y and He may go — if he can. 



THE DANCING GIRL. 

She comes — the spirit of the dance ! 

And, but for those large, eloquent eyes, 
Where passion speaks in every glance. 

She 'd seem a wanderer from the skies. 

So light, that gazing breathless there, 
Lest the celestial dream should go. 

You 'd think the music in the air 
Waved the fair vision to and fro ! 
166 



Osgood. 167 



Or that the melody's sweet flow 
Within the radiant creature played, 

And those soft wreathing arms of snow 
And white sylph feet the music made. 

Now gliding slow with dreamy grace, 
Her eyes beneath their lashes lost. 

Now motionless with lifted face, 

And small hands on her bosom crossed ; 

And now with flashing eyes she springs — 
Her whole bright figure raised in air. 

As if her soul had spread its wings 

And poised her one wild instant there ! 

She spoke not ; but so richly fraught 
With language was her glance and smile, 

That when the curtain fell, I thought 
She had been talking all the while. 




WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. 



William Ross Wallace was born at Lexington, 
Ky., in 1 8 19. He practiced law in New York after 
1 841, and contributed occasionally for magazines. 
He died at New York, May 5, 1881. Wallace had 
the sense of literary patriotism and the gift of rheto- 
ric, rather than natural poetic inspiration. His 
poems, however, are in their way praiseworthy. 
Among them, Of Thine Own Country Sing is char- 
acterized by its breadth and vigor of treatment, by 
the clear and well-proportioned presentation of his 
theme. This piece recalls some of the shorter poems 
of Coleridge. 

OF THINE OWN COUNTRY SING. 

I met the wild-eyed Genius of our land 

In Huron's forest vast and dim ; 
I saw her sweep a harp with stately hand ; 

I heard her solemn hymn. 

She sang of nations that had passed away 
From her own broad imperial clime ; 

Of nations new to whom she gave the sway : 
She sang of God and Time. 

168 



Wallace, 169 

I saw the Past with all its rhythmic lore ; 

I saw the Present clearly glow ; 
Shapes with pale faces paced a far dim shore 

And whispered '* Joy " and ''Woe ! " 

Her large verse pictured mountain, vale, and bay ; 

Our wide, calm rivers rolled along, 
And many a mighty lake and prairie lay 

In the shadow of her song. 

As in Missouri's mountain range, the vast 

Wild wind majestically flies 
From crag to crag, till on the top at last 

The wild wind proudly dies. 

So died the hymn, " O, Genius ! how can I 
Crown me with song as thou art crowned ? " 

She, smiling, pointed to the spotless sky 
And the forest-tops around, — 

Then sang — " Not to the far-off lands of Eld 

Must thou for inspiration go ; 
There Milton's large imperial organ swelled, 

There Avon's ^ waters flow. 

** No alien-bard, where Tasso's" troubled lyre 
Made sorrow fair, unchallenged dwells — 
Where deep-eyed Dante ^ with the wreath of fire 
Came chanting from his hells. 

^ Avon, a river of England which flows by Shakespeare's birth- 
place, Stratford. 

^ Tasso, an Italian poet, b. at Sorrento, in 1544. 

^ Dante Alighieri, author of Divine Comedy ^ one of the greatest 
poets who ever lived, b. at Florence, Italy, in 1265. 



I70 American Song, 

" Yet sometimes sing the old majestic themes 
Of Europe in her song enshrined : 
These, going wind-like o'er the Sea of Dreams, 
May liberalize the mind. 

" Or learn from mournful Asia, as she lies 
Musing at noon beneath her stately palms, 
Her angel-lore, her wide-browed prophecies. 
Her solemn-sounding psalms. 

" Or sit with Afric ^ when her eyes of flame 

Smoulder in dreams, beneath their swarthy lids, 
Of youthful Sphinx, and kings at loud acclaim 
On new-built pyramids. 

" But know thy Highest dwells at Home : there art 
And choral inspiration spring ; 
If thou wouldst touch the universal heart, 
Of thine own country sing." 

^ Afric. Africa. 




JOHN GODFREY SAXE. 



John Godfrey Saxe is a genius by himself. Saxe 
was born at Highgate, Vt., June 2, 1816. He was 
graduated at Middlebury College, entered the bar, 
edited a newspaper, and held political offices. He 
also wrote for magazines and published several vol- 
umes of poetry. A leading quality of much of his 
verse is humor. On sober subjects, for instance in 
Murillo and his Slave, he has also done good work. 
The verses by Saxe excel by virtue of plain, honest 
statement, and are even sometimes wanting in liter- 
ary finish. Saxe died at Albany, N. Y., March 31, 
1887. 



MURILLO AND HIS SLAVE. 

A LEGEND OF SPAIN. 

" Whose work is this ? " Murillo said, 
The while he bent his eager gaze 

Upon a sketch (a Virgin's head) 
That filled the painter with amaze. 
171 



172 American Song, 

Of all his pupils, not a few,— 

Marvelling, 't would seem no less than he ; 
Each answered that he nothing knew 

As touching whose the sketch might be. 

This much appeared, and nothing more : 
The piece was painted in the night : 

" And yet, by Jove ! " Murillo swore, 
" He has no cause to fear the light." 

" * T is something crude, and lacks, I own, 
That finer finish time will teach ; 

But genius here is plainly shown. 
And art beyond the common reach. 

" Sebastian ! " (turning to his slave,) 

" Who keeps this room when I 'm in bed ? " 

" ' T is I, Sefior." "Now mark you, knave ! 
Keep better watch," the master said ; 

" For if this painter comes again, 
And you, while dozing, let him slip, 

Excuses will be all in vain, — 

Remember, you shall feel the whip ! " 

Now while Sebastian slept, he dreamed 
That to his dazzled vision came 

The Blessed Lady — so she seemed — 

And crowned him with a wreath of Fame. 

Whereat the startled slave awoke. 
And at his picture wrought away 

So rapt that ere the spell was broke, 
The dark was fading into day. 



Saxe. I iz 

" My beautiful ! " the artist cried ; 

" Thank God, I have not lived in vain ! " 
Hark ! 'T is Murillo at his side ; 

The man has grown a slave again. 

" Who is your master ? — answer me ! " 
'' 'T is you," replied the faltering lad. 

" Nay, 't is not that, I mean," said he, 
** Tell me, what teacher have you had ? " 

" Yourself, Senor. When you have taught 

These gentlemen, I too have heard 
The daily lesson, and have sought 

To treasure every golden word." 

" What say you, boys .»*" Murillo cried. 

Smiling in sign of fond regard, 
" Is this a case — pray you decide — 

For punishment, or for reward ? " 

" Reward, Senor ! " they all exclaimed, 
And each proposed some costly toy ; 

But still, whatever gift was named, 
Sebastian showed no gleam of joy. 

Whereat one said : " He 's kind to-day ; 

Ask him your Freedom." With a groan 
The boy fell on his knees : " Nay, nay ! 

My father's freedom, not my own." 

" Take both ! " the painter. " Henceforth 
A slave no more, — be thou my son ; 

Thy Art had failed, with all its worth. 
Of what thy Heart this day has won ! " 



174 American Song. 



L ENVOI. 



The traveller, loitering in Seville, 
And gazing at each pictured saint. 

May see Murillo's genius still, 
And learn how well his son could paint. 




HENRY DAVID THOREAU. 



Thoreau was an eccentric recluse, who, in his own 
way, however, had found out many reasons why 
Hfe is worth living. Henry David Thoreau was born 
at Concord, Massachusetts, July 12, 1817. He was 
graduated at Harvard, built him a hut on the edge of 
Walden Pond, near his native town, and lived for a 
number of years without the aid of human society. 
He spent much of his time out of doors in the ob- 
servation of nature, occupying himself also in the 
study of the great authors of the past. Thoreau was 
well versed in the lore of wild nature. He was also 
an original thinker on certain literary and ethical sub- 
jects in which he found himself specially interested. 
He was distinctively a poet in his imagination and 
fancy, and in his power of imbuing himself with the 
spirit of the woods in which he lived, but his more 
important Hterary productions, such as Walden, A 
Week on the Concord and Merrimac, etc., took the 
form of prose. The Fishing Boy is an example of 
what he could do in verse with a subject which 
appealed to his personal sympathies. 



175 



17^ American Song, 

THE FISHING BOY. 

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, 
As near the ocean's edge as I can go ; 

My tardy steps its waves sometimes o'er-reach 
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow. 

My sole employment is, and scrupulous care. 
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides, 

Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare. 
Which ocean kindly to my hand confides. 

I have but few companions on the shore : 

They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea ; 

Yet oft I think the ocean they 've sailed o'er 
Is deeper known upon the strand to me. 

The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,^ 
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view ; 

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse. 

And I converse with many a ship-wrecked crew. 

And since in life I loved them well, 
Let me in death lie down with them. 

And let the pines and tempests swell 
Around me their great requiem. 

^ Dulse, a kind of seaweed. 



THOMAS BUCHANAN READ. 



Thomas Buchanan Read, whose ambition it was 
to be an artist, is now better remembered by his 
poems. Read was born in Chester County, Pennsyl- 
vania, March 12, 1822. He studied, first in the 
large cities of this country, then in the galleries of 
Florence and Rome. Read died in New York, May 
II, 1872. In Read's poetry, which contains traces 
of his artistic sense, he has excelled in several dif- 
ferent styles. Sheridan's Ride is famous ; Drifting 
and The Closing Scene are hardly less so. Others 
are almost as good: The So7ig of the Alpine Guide^ 
The Closing Scene ^ or the sonnet / Have Looked on a 
Face, should all be read in order to fill out that 
idea of Read's capability which is only partly re- 
vealed through the two former. 



SONG OF THE ALPINE GUIDE. 

On Zurich's ^ spires, with rosy light. 
The mountains smile at morn and eve, 

And Zurich's waters, blue and bright, 

The glories of those hills receive. 

^ Zurich^ a beautiful city of Switzerland. 

177 



178 American Song. 

And there my sister trims her sail, 
That like a wayward swallow flies ; 

But I would rather meet the gale, 
That fans the eagle in the skies. 

She sings in Zurich's chapel choir, 

Where rolls the organ on the air, 
And bells proclaim from spire to spire 

Their universal call to prayer. 
But let me hear the mountain rills. 

And old Saint Bernard's * storm-bell toll, 
And, 'mid these great cathedral hills. 

The thundering avalanches roll. 

My brother wears a martial plume, 

And serves within a distant land, — 
The flowers that on his bosom bloom 

Are placed there by a stranger hand. 
Love greets him but in foreign eyes, 

And greets him in a foreign speech. 
But she who to my heart replies 

Must speak the tongue these mountains teach. 

The warrior's trumpet o'er him swells. 

The triumph which it only hath ; 
But let me hear the mule-worn bells 

Speak peace in every mountain heath. 
His spear is ever 'gainst a foe. 

Where waves the hostile flag abroad ; 
My pike-staff only clears the snow. 

My banner the blue sky of God. 

* Saint Bernard^ the well-known hospice of Saint Bernard. 



Read, 1 79 

On Zurich's side my mother sits, 

And to her whirling spindle sings ; 
Through Zurich's waves my father's nets 

Sweep daily with their filmy wings, 
To that beloved voice I list ; 

And view that father's toil with pride ; 
But like a low and vale-born mist, 

My spirit climbs the mountain side. 

And I would ever hear the stir 

And turmoil of the singing winds, 
Whose. viewless wheels around me whirr, 

Whose distaffs are the swaying pines, 
And on some snowy mountain's head. 

The deepest joy to me is given. 
Where, net-like, the great storm is spread 

To sweep the azure lake of Heaven. 

Then since the vale delights me not, 

And Zurich wooes in vain below, 
And it hath been my joy and lot 

To scale these Alpine crags of snow — 
And since in life I loved them well. 

Let me in death lie down with them, 
And let the pines and tempests swell 

Around me their great requiem. 




GUY HUMPHREYS McMASTER. 



The poem, The Old Continentals^ or, as it has also 
been aptly called, Car^nen Bellicosum, should, as well 
as the name of the author, be kept from oblivion. 
Judge Guy Humphreys McMaster was born at Clyde, 
N. Y., January 31, 1829. He wrote the poem at 
nineteen years of age, and it appeared soon after in 
the Knickerbocker Magazine of February, 1849, over 
the signature " John MacGrom." The piece is the 
best extant imaginative description of the Revolu- 
tionary soldier, with his quaint garb covering a 
grim determination. McMaster died at Bath, N. Y., 
in September, 1887.' 



CARMEN BELLICOSUM. 

In their ragged regimentals, 
Stood the old Continentals, 

Yielding not, 
When the Grenadiers were lunging, 
And like hail fell the plunging 

^ I am indebted for these facts to a notice in the New York Critic^ 
vol. viii., p. 203 (erroneously given vol. xi., in Poole's Index), includ- 
ing extracts from a letter by Mr. E. C. Stedman. 

180 



Mc Master. i8i 

Cannon-shot ; 

When the files 

Of the isles, 
From the smoky night encampment, 
Bore the banner of the rampant 

Unicorn, 
And grummer, grummer, grummer, 
Rolled the roll of the drummer 

Through the morn ! 

Then with eyes to the front all, 
And with guns horizontal, 

Stood our sires ; 
And the balls whistled deadly, 
And in streams flashing redly 

Blazed the fires ; 

As the roar 

On the shore. 
Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded 
acres 

Of the plain ; 
And louder, louder, louder, 
Cracked the black gunpowder, 

Cracking amain ! 

Now like smiths at their forges 
Worked the red St. George's 

Cannoniers, 
And the " villainous saltpetre " 
Rang a fierce discordant metre 

Round their ears ; 

As the swift 

Storm-drift, 



1 82 American Song. 

With hot sweeping anger, came the horse-guards' clangor 

On our flanks. 
Then higher, higher, higher burned 
The old-fashioned fire 

Through the ranks ! 

Then the old-fashioned colonel 
Galloped through the white infernal 

Powder-cloud ; 
And his broad sword was swinging, 
And his brazen throat was ringing, 
Trumpet-loud. 
Then the blue 
Bullets flew. 
And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the 
leaden 
Rifle-breath. 
And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six- 
pounder, 
Hurling death. 





JOHN ANTROBUS. 



One American poem has been written by an artist 
not a native of this country. John Antrobus, the 
author of The Cow-boy, was born at Walsall, Staf- 
fordshire, England, in 1831, but came to America at 
the age of eighteen. He gained some repute as 
a painter, and has also published other poetry than 
the present selection. The Cow-boy is a vivid picture, 
especially successful in the half-careless, half-artful 
refrain at the close of each stanza. 



THE COW-BOY. 

" "What care I, what cares he, 
What cares the world of the life we know ! 
Little they reck of the shadowless plains. 
The shelterless mesa, the sun and the rains. 
The wild, free life, as the winds that blow." 

With his broad sombrero,^ 

His worn chapparejos. 

And clinking spurs, 

* Sombrero, a kind of broad-brimmed hat. 
183 



1 84 American Song, 

Like a Centaur he speeds, 
Where the wild bull feeds ; 
And he laughs ha, ha ! who cares, who cares ! 

Ruddy and brown — careless and free — 

A king in the saddle — he rides at will 

O'er the measureless range where rarely change 

The swart gray plains so weird and strange. 

Treeless, and streamless, and wondrous still ! 

With his slouch sombrero, 

His torn chapparejos, 

And clinking spurs 

Like a Centaur he speeds 

Where the wild bull feeds : 
And he laughs ha, ha ! who cares, who cares ! 

He of the towns, he of the East, 
Has only a vague, dull thought of him ; 
In his far-off dreams the cow-boy seems 
A mythical thing, a thing he deems 
A Hun or a Goth, as swart and grim ! 

With his stained sombrero, 

His rough chapparejos, 

And clinking spurs. 

Like a Centaur he speeds 

Where the wild bull feeds ; 
And he laughs ha, ha ! who cares, who cares ! 

Often alone, his saddle a throne, 
He scans like a sheik the numberless herd ; 
Where the buffalo-grass and the sage-grass dry 
In the hot white glare of a cloudless sky, 
And the music of streams is never heard. 
With his gay sombrero, 



Antrobus, 185 

His brown chapparejos, 
And clinking spurs, 
Like a Centaur he speeds, 
Where the wild bull feeds ; 
And he laughs ha, ha ! who cares, who cares ! 

Swift and strong, and ever alert, 

Yet sometimes he rests on the dreary vast ; 

And his thoughts, like the thoughts of other men, 

Go back to his childhood's days again. 

And to many a loved one in the past. 

With his gay sombrero, 

His rude chapparejos, 

And clinking spurs. 

He rests awhile, 

With a tear and a smile. 
Then he laughs ha, ha ! who cares, who cares ! 

Sometimes his mood from solitude 

Hurries him heedless off to the town ! 

Where mirth and wine through the goblet shine. 

And treacherous sirens twist and twine 

The lasso that often brings him down ; 

With his soaked sombrero. 

His rent chapparejos. 

And clinking spurs. 

He staggers back 

On the homeward track. 
And shouts to the plains — who cares, who cares ! 

*T is over late at the ranchman's gate — 
He and his fellows, perhaps a score, 
Halt in a quarrel o'er night begun. 
With a ready blow and a random gun — 



1 86 American Song, 



There 's a dead, dead comrade ! nothing more. 

With his slouched sombrero, 

His dark chapparejos, 

And clinking spurs, 

He dashes past, 

With face o'ercast, 
And growls in his throat — who cares, who cares ! 

Away on the range there is little change ; 
He blinks in the sun, he herds the steers ; 
But a trail on the wind keeps close behind. 
And whispers that stagger and blanch the mind 
Through the hum of the solemn noon he hears ; 

With his dark sombrero, 

His stained chapparejos, 

And clinking spurs. 

He sidles down. 

Where the grasses brown 
May hide his face, while he sobs — who cares ! 

But what care I, and what cares he — 

This is the strain, common at least ; 

He is free and vain of his bridle-rein. 

Of his spurs, of his gun, of the dull, gray plain ; 

He is ever vain of his broncho^ beast ! 

With his gray sombrero. 

His brown chapparejos. 

And clinking spurs. 

Like a Centaur he speeds, 

Where the wild bull feeds ; 
And he laughs, ha, ha ! — who cares, who cares ! 

* BronchOy a horse not broken ; a western word. 




II. At Swords* Points. 

The war songs of 1861-65 struck a new chord on 
the national harp. Never before in this country had 
battle been urged by poetry so good in itself ; and 
never before had American literature shown such fire 
in its notes of feeling. ^ 

The bards of one side replying, as it were, to those 
of the other, the ballads have an antiphonal interest. 
The southern lyrics are parts of the past ; but as 
truly national to us, as the Celtic odes are to England ; 
echoes lovely in their life and their picturesqueness, 
and attractive from their sentiment of fellowship and 
their hatred of fancied tyranny. The northern 
poems are sterner, deeper, and more serious ; less 
adventurous, it is true, but fully as determined in 
their strenuous resolution for victory. They are also 
inclined less to self-glorification and more toward 
unselfish passion for the preservation of the Union. 
On both sides, though there are certain minstrels 
distinguished by a stronger and a more frequent 
touch than the others, the interest of the war ballads 
of '61 is rather national than personal. 

General reference : American War Ballads. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

* In response to the request of my publishers, I am glad to be able 
to append here Holmes's Old Ironsides, a poem on a war-ship, and 
thus related psychologically to this group. 

187 



JULIA WARD HOWE. 



Julia Ward Howe was born in New York, May 
27, 1819. 

'* She with all the charm of woman, 
She with all the breadth of man," 

as seen in her writings, has been distinguished rather 
as a reformer on the lecture platform and with the 
pen, than as a poet. In the The Battle-Hymn of 
the Rep7iblicy however, her nature comes out at its 
strongest, under manifestations seen only partially 
and occasionally in her other poems. 



BATTLE-HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath 

are stored ; 
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift 

sword : 

His truth is marching on. 



Howe. 189 

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 

camps ; 
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 

damps ; 
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 

lamps : 

His day is marching on. 

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel : 
" As ye deal with my condemners, so with you my grace 

shall deal ; 
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his 

heel. 

Since God is marching on." 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 
retreat ; 

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment- 
seat ; 

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him ! be jubilant, my 
feet! 

Our God is marching on. 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea. 
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me : 
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men 
free, 

While God is marching on. 

November, 1861. 




JAMES THOMAS FIELDS. 



James Thomas Fields, genial publisher, man of 
letters, and literary enthusiast, was born at Ports- 
mouth, N. H., December 31, 18 16. He had inti- 
mate and friendly relations with the leading poets, 
not merely as their man of business, but also as the 
companion of their social hours. Lowell has dedi- 
cated one of his volumes to Fields, and Whittier 
has left r. pen portrait of him in his Tent on the 
Beach. As a writer of verse, Fields*s hearty ener- 
getic character comes out in the poem, The Stars and 
Stripes, Fields died at Boston, Mass., April 24, 1 881. 



THE STARS AND STRIPES. 

Rally round the flag, boys — 
Give it to the breeze ! 

That 's the banner we bore 
On the land and seas. 

Brave hearts are under it, 

Let the traitors brag. 
Gallant lads, fire away ! 

And fight for the flag. 
190 



Fields, 



191 



Their flag is but a rag — 
Ours is the true one ; 

Up with the Stars and Stripes ! 
Down with the new one ! 

Let our colors fly, boys — 
Guard them day and night ; 

For victory is liberty, 
And God will bless the right. 




ALBERT PIKE. 



(For biographical notice see the poem, Every Year.) 



DIXIE. 



Southrons, hear your country call you ! 
Up, lest worse than death befall you ! 
To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie ! 
Lo ! all the beacon-fires are lighted — 
Let all hearts be now united ! 
To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie ! 

Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

Hurrah ! Hurrah ! 

For Dixie's land we take our stand, 

And live or die for Dixie ! 

To arms ! To arms ! 

And conquer peace for Dixie ! 

' Dixie was the name given by the Southerners to the territory of 
the eleven Confederate States which seceded in 1861. It is derived 
from the old Mason and Dixon's line, which under one of the several 
Congressional compromises, had been fixed to divide slave territory 
from free. 

I quote from a letter in my possession from Mr. Yvon Pike, who 
writes : 

" My father wrote two poems entitled Dixie ^ one in 1861, and the 
other [which I have not seen] just after the war." 

192 



Pike, 193 



To arms ! To arms ! 

And conquer peace for Dixie ! 

Hear the Northern thunders mutter ! 
Northern flags in South winds flutter ! 

To arms ! 
Send them back your fierce defiance ! 
Stamp upon the accursed alliance ! 

To arms ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

Fear no danger ! shun no labor ! 
Lift up rifle, pike, and sabre ! 

To arms ! 
Shoulder pressing close to shoulder, 
Let the odds make each heart bolder ! 

To arms ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

How the South's great heart rejoices 
At your cannon's ringing voices ! 

To arms ! 
For faith betrayed, and pledges broken, 
Wrongs inflicted, insults spoken, 

To arms ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

Strong as lions, swift as eagles, 

Back to their kennels hunt these beagles ! 

To arms ! 
Cut the unequal bond asunder ! 
Let them hence each other plunder ! 

To arms ! 

Advance the flag of Dixie ! 
13 



194 American So7tg. 

Swear upon your country's altar 
Never to submit or falter ! 

To arms ! 
Till the spoilers are defeated, 
Till the Lord's work is completed, 

To arms ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

Halt not till our Federation 

Secures among earth's powers its station ! 

To arms ! 
Then at peace, and crowned with glory, 
Hear your children tell the story ! 
To arms ! 
Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

If the loved ones weep in sadness. 
Victory soon shall bring them gladness. 

To arms ! 
Exultant pride soon banish sorrow ; 
Smiles chase tears away to-morrow. 
To arms ! To arms ! To arms, in Dixie ! 

Advance the flag of Dixie ! 

Hurrah ! hurrah ! 

For Dixie's land we take our stand. 

And live or die for Dixie ! 

To arms ! To arms ! 

And conquer peace for Dixie ! 

To arms ! To arms ! 
And conquer peace for Dixie ! 



ROSSITER WORTHINGTON RAYMOND. 



Rossiter Worthington Raymond was born at Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1840. He is known rather 
as a scientist than as a man of letters, but among other 
writings he has composed several war-ballads. Of 
these his Cavalry Song is the best. 



CAVALRY SONG. 

Our bugles sound gayly. To horse and away ! 
And over the mountains breaks the day ; 
Then ho ! brothers, ho ! for the ride or the fight, 
There are deeds to be done ere we slumber to-night ! 

And whether we fight or whether we fall 

By sabre-stroke or rifle ball. 

The hearts of the free will remember us yet, 

And our country, our country will never forget ! 

Then mount and away ! let the coward delight 
To be lazy all day and safe all night ; 
Our joy is a charger, flecked with foam. 
And the earth is our bed and the saddle our home ; 
And whether we fight, etc. 
195 



19^ American Song. 

See yonder the ranks of the traitorous foe, 
And bright in the sunshine bayonets glow ! 
Breathe a prayer, but no sigh ; think for what you would 

fight; 
Then charge ! with a will boys, and God for the right ! 
And whether we fight, etc. 

We have gathered again the red laurels of war ; 
We have followed the traitors fast and far ; 
But some who rose gayly this morn with the sun 
Lie bleeding and pale on the field they have won ! 
But whether we fight, etc. 




JAMES RYDER RANDALL. 



James Ryder Randall was born at Baltimore, Md., 
January i, 1829. He studied at Georgetown College, 
and later removed to Louisiana. Since then he has 
held several editorial positions in the South. 

Randall was one of the leading poets of the Lost 
Cause. His production was prolific ; his style is 
fresh, spirited, and chivalric. My Maryland is his 
best lyric. There 's Life in the Old Lafid Yet has in 
it very quotable lines. Among others of excellence 
are John Pelham, and the poem beginning, *' Weep, 
Louisiana, weep." Randall's fault, if it be one in a 
war song — vituperation — is more than atoned for by 
his energy and vividness. 



MY MARYLAND. 

The despot's heel is on thy shore, 

Maryland ! 
His torch is at thy temple door, 

Maryland ! 
Avenge the patriotic gore 
197 



19^ American Song, 

That flecked the streets of Baltimore,* 
And be the battle queen of yore, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Hark to an exiled son's appeal, 

Maryland ! 
My Mother State, to thee I kneel, 

Maryland ! 
For life or death, for woe or weal, 
Thy peerless chivalry reveal, 
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not cower in the dust, 

Maryland ! 
Thy beaming sword shall never rust, 

Maryland ! 
Remember Carroll's "^ sacred trust, 
Remember Howard's ^ warlike thrust, 
And all thy slumberers with the just, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Come ! 't is the red dawn of the day, 

Maryland ! 
Come with thy panoplied array, 

Maryland ! 

* Baltimore, referring to the conflict of the Sixth Massachusetts 
Regiment with the people of Baltimore, on passing through the 
town. 

' Charles Carroll, of CarrolUon, Revolutionary patriot, born at 
Annapolis, in 1737, 

3 John Eager Howard, a distinguished military officer, born in 
Baltimore Co., Md., in 1752. 



Randall. 199 

With Ringgold's * spirit for the fray, 
With Watson's "" blood at Monterey, 
With fearless Lowe ^ and dashing May,'' 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Dear Mother, burst the tyrant's chain, 

Maryland ! 
Virginia should not call in vain, 

Maryland ! 
She meets her sisters on the plain, 
" Sic semper I " 't is the proud refrain 
That baffles minions back amain, 

Maryland ! 
Arise in majesty again, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Come ! for thy shield is bright and strong. 

Maryland ! 
Come ! for thy dalliance does thee wrong, 

Maryland ! 
Come to thine own heroic throng 
Stalking with liberty along, 
And chant thy dauntless slogan-song,^ 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

I see the blush upon thy cheek, 

Maryland ! 
But thou wast ever bravely meek, 

Maryland ! 

* Major Samuel Ringgold, born in Washington Co., Md., in 1800. 
^ Watson ; Lowe ; May ; Maryland soldiers of local fame. 

* Slogan Song, war cry ; used first of a Highland clan in Scotland. 



200 A7nerican Song, 

But lo ! there surges forth a shriek, 
From hill to hill, from creek to creek, 
Potomac calls to Chesapeake, 
Maryland, my Maryland ! 

Thou wilt not yield the Vandal toll, 

Maryland ! 
Thou wilt not crook to his control, 

Maryland ! 
Better the fire upon thee roll. 
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl, 
Than crucifixion of the soul, 

Maryland, my Maryland ! 

I hear the distant thunder hum 

Maryland ! 
The " Old Line's " bugle, fife, and drum, 

Maryland ! 
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb ; 
Huzza ! she spurns the Northern scum — 
She breathes ! she burns ! She '11 come ! She *11 



come 



Maryland, my Maryland ! 



'^^^^^ 


^^ 


^^^^^^^^M^^^^^ 




^^ 


^^^^^^^^^^^m 




^^ 


^^^^^^^^^S 






^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^S 



EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN. 



Edmund Clarence Stedman was born at Hartford, 
Conn., October 8, 1833. He studied at Yale Col- 
lege, and in his varied career has been editor, critic, 
essayist, stock-broker, and last but not least, poet. 
Stedman's largest literary work of general interest 
Is his Poets 0/ America, but his Victorian Poets has 
won fame for its thorough knowledge of the subject, 
and for its keen yet temperate criticism. Of his 
own poems, those which deal with war subjects have 
won the largest measure of appreciation, and, by 
their force of unconscious sincerity and passion, are 
considered to surpass their author's more ornate 
poems on classical subjects. Wanted — A Man is 
the chief among these war ballads ; others that 
ought to be mentioned are Sumter and Treason s 
Last Device. An exquisite fancy, one of the most 
charming productions of American verse, which 
does not belong to the war ballads, is the Pan in 
Wall Street, 



201 



202 American Song, 

WANTED— A MAN/ 

Back from the trebly crimsoned field 

Terrible words are thunder-tost ; 
Full of the wrath that will not yield, 

Full of revenge for battles lost ! 
Hark to their echo, as it crost 

The Capital, making faces wan : 
End this murderous holocaust ; 

Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man ! 

Give us a man of God's own mould, 

Born to marshal his fellow-men ; 
One whose fame is not bought and sold 

At the stroke of a politician's pen ; 
Give us the man of thousands ten, 

Fit to do as well as to plan ; 
Give us a rallying cry, and then, 

Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man ? 

No leader to shirk the boasting foe. 

And to march and countermarch our brave. 
Till they fall like ghosts in the marshes low. 

And swamp-grass covers each nameless grave ; 
Nor another, whose fatal banners wave 

Aye in disaster's shameful van ; 
Nor another, to bluster, and lie, and rave, — 

Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man ! 

* This virile cry for a fit leader for the Army of the Potomac was 
inspired by an editorial article of Henry J. Raymond in the New 
York Times. It was written in 1862, when the popular feeling of 
chagrin and humiliation over McClellan's failure and Pope's disaster 
at Manassas was most intense. Mr. Lincoln was so strongly impressed 
by the poem that he read it to his Cabinet. 



Stedman. 203 

Hearts are mourning In the North, 
While the sister rivers seek the main, 

Red with our life-blood flowing forth — 

Who shall gather it up again ? 

Though we march to the battle-plain 
Firmly as when the strife began, 

Shall all our offering be in vain ? — 
Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man ! 

Is there never one in all the land. 

One on whose might the Cause may lean ? 
Are all the common ones so grand. 

And all the titled ones so mean ! 
What if your failure may have been 

In trying to make good bread from bran, 
From worthless metal a weapon keen ? — 

Abraham Lincoln, find us a Man ! 

Oh, we will follow him to the death. 
Where the foeman's fiercest columns are ! 
Oh, we will use our latest breath. 

Cheering for every sacred star ! 
His to marshal us high and far ; 

Ours to battle, as patriots can 
When a hero leads the Holy War ! — 

Abraham Lincoln, give us a Man ! 





JAMES SLOAN GIBBONS. 



James Sloan Gibbons was born at Wilmington, 
Delaware, July i, 1820. The song here quoted was 
published in 1862, but was until lately printed anony- 
mously. The poem, with its splendid single line 
refrain, was Gibbons's only noted purely literary 
work ; but he was as zealous in behalf of anti-slavery 
as might be expected from the tone of his verses. 
His house in New York was sacked in the anti- 
slavery riots of 1863. Gibbons died at New York 
City, October 17, 1892. 



THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE. 



We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 
more, 

From Mississippi's winding stream and from New Eng- 
land's shore ; 

We leave our ploughs and workshops, our wives and 
children dear, 

With hearts too full for utterance, with but a silent tear ; 

We dare not look behind us, but steadfastly before : 

We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 



more 



204 



Gibbons, 205 

If you look across the hill-tops that meet the northern sky, 
Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry ; 
And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloudy veil aside, 
And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride. 
And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave 

music pour ; 
We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 

more ! 

If you look all up our valleys where the growing harvests 

shine. 
You may see our sturdy farmer boys fast forming into 

line ; 
And children from their mother's knees are pulling at 

the weeds. 
And learning how to reap and sow against their country's 

needs ; 
And a farewell group stands weeping at every cottage 

door : 
We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 

more ! 

You have called us and we 're coming, by Richmond's 
bloody tide, 

To lay us down for Freedom's sake, our brothers' bones 
beside, 

Or from foul treason's savage grasp to wrench the mur- 
derous blade, 

And in the face of foreign foes its fragments to parade. 

Six hundred thousand loyal men and true have gone 
before : 

We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 
more ! 



GEORGE HENRY BOKER. 



George Henry Boker was born at Philadelphia, 
Penn., October 6, 1823, and died there January 2, 
1890. Boker is the American who perhaps has most 
fully possessed the dramatic faculty. His best known 
play is Francesca da Rimini, Boker excels in the 
delineation of strenuous, often uncontrolled passion, 
both in long scenes and in short lyrics. Paolo, in the 
dialogue with Francesca is perhaps too improbably 
analytical in his reflections, which in its parts is also 
unequal in merit. But in this drama and in the 
poem, The Varuna, which in its progress perhaps 
slackens a little in movement, owing to imperfect 
narration, there is still powerful work. 



THE VARUNA. 

Who has not heard of the dauntless Varuna ? 

Who has not heard of the deeds she has done ? 
Who shall not hear, while the brown Mississippi 

Rushes along from the snow to the sun ? 

Crippled and leaking she entered the battle. 

Sinking and burning she fought through the fray ; 
206 



Boker. 207 



Crushed were her sides and the waves ran across her, 

Ere, like a death-wounded lion at bay, 
Sternly she closed in the last fatal grapple, 

Then in her triumph moved grandly away. 

Five of the rebels, like satellites round her, 
Burned in her orbit of splendor and fear ; 

One, like the pleiad of mystical story, 

Shot, terror-stricken, beyond her dread sphere. 

We who are waiting with crowns for the victors. 
Though we should offer the wealth of our stores, 

Load the Varuna from deck down to kelson, 
Still would be niggard, such tribute to pour 

On courage so boundless. It beggars possession, — 
It knocks for just payment at Heaven's bright door ! 

Cherish the heroes who fought the Varuna ; 

Treat them as kings if they honor your way ; 
Succor and comfort the sick and the wounded ; 

Oh ! for the dead let us all kneel to pray ! 




NATHANIEL GRAHAM SHEPHERD. 



Nathaniel Graham Shepherd was born at New- 
York, in 1835. He was a journahst, and at the time 
of the civil war a war correspondent. Among several 
war-poems which he has written, Roll Call is the 
most popular. Shepherd died at New York, May 
23, 1869. 



ROLL-CALL. 

" Corporal Green ! " the Orderly cried ; 
" Here ! " was the answer, loud and clear, 
From the lips of the soldier who stood near,- 

And " Here ! " was the word the next replied. 



" Cyrus Drew ! " — then a silence fell ; 

This time no answer followed the call ; 

Only his rear-man had seen him fall ; 
Killed or wounded — he could not tell. 

There they stood in the failing light, 

These men of battle, with grave, dark looks, 
As plain to be read as open books, 

While slowly gathered the shades of night. 
208 



Shepherd, ^09 

The fern on the hill-sides was splashed with blood, 
And down in the corn where the poppies grew 
Were redder stains than the poppies knew ; 

And crimson-dyed was the river's flood. 

For the foe had crossed from the other side 
That day, in the face of a murderous fire 
That swept them down in its terrible ire, 

And their life-blood went to color the tide. 

"Herbert Kline ! " At the call there came 
Two stalwart soldiers into the line, 
Bearing between them this Herbert Kline, 

Wounded and bleeding, to answer his name. 

" Ezra Kerr ! " — and a voice answered, " Here ! " 

" Hiram Kerr ! " — but no man replied. 

They were brothers, these two ; the sad winds sighed, 
And a shudder crept through the cornfield near. 

" Ephraim Deane ! " — then a soldier spoke ; 

" Deane carried our regiment's colors," he said ; 

" Where our ensign was shot I left him dead, 
Just after the enemy wavered and broke. 

" Close to the roadside his body lies ; 

I paused a moment and gave him a drink ; 

He murmured his mother's name, I think. 
And death came with it, and closed his eyes." 

'T was a victory ; yes, but it cost us dear, — 
For that company's roll, when called at night. 
Of a hundred men who went into the fight, 

Numbered but twenty that answered " Here ! " 



ABRAHAM JOSEPH RYAN. 



Abraham Joseph Ryan was born at Norfolk, Va., 
August 15, 1839. Father Ryan was a CathoHc 
priest, and a confederate chaplain through the war. 
He was also a writer of war-poems, known most 
widely by The Conquered Banner^ in which with the 
old fervor for that flag which 

"will live in song and story," 

is mingled decisive resignation and counsel to 

*' Furl that Banner, softly, slowly ! " — 
and to 

" Let it droop there, furled forever, — 
For its people's hopes are fled." 

Ryan died at Louisville, Ky., April 22, 1886. 



THE CONQUERED BANNER. 

Furl that Banner, for *t is weary. 
Round its staff 'tis drooping dreary 

Furl it, fold it, — it is best ; 
For there 's not a man to wave it, 
210 



Ryan 



211 



And there 's not a sword to save it, 
And there 's not one left to lave it 
In the blood which heroes gave it, 
And its foes now scorn and brave it ; 
Furl it, hide it, — let it rest ! 

Take that Banner down ! 't is tattered ; 
Broken is its staff and shattered, 
And the valiant hosts are scattered 

Over whom it floated high ; 
Oh, 't is hard for us to fold it. 
Hard to think there 's none to hold it. 
Hard that those who once unrolled it 

Now must furl it with a sigh ! 

Furl that Banner — furl it sadly ; 
Once ten thousands hailed it gladly. 
And ten thousands wildly, madly, 

Swore it should forever wave — 
Swore that foemen's swords could never 
Hearts like theirs entwined dissever. 
And that flag should wave forever 

O'er their freedom, or their grave ! 

Furl it ! — for the hands that grasped it, 
And the hearts that fondly clasped it, 

Cold and dead are lying low ; 
And the Banner — it is trailing. 
While around it sounds the wailing. 

Of its people in their woe ; 
For though conquered, they adore it — 
Love the cold dead hands that bore it. 
Weep for those who fell before it, 



2 12 American Song, 

Pardon those who trailed and tore it ; 
And, oh, wildly they deplore it, 
Now to furl and fold it so ! 

Furl that Banner ! True 't is gory, 
Yet 't is wreathed around with glory, 
And 't will live in song and story 

Though its folds are in the dust ! 
For its fame on brightest pages, 
Penned by poets and by sages, 
Shall go sounding down the ages — 

Furl its folds though now we must ! 

Furl that Banner, softly, slowly ; 
Treat it gently — it is holy. 

For it droops above the dead ; 
Touch it not — unfold it never ; 
Let it droop there, furled forever, — 

For its people's hopes are fled. 




OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 



(For biographical notice see under "Classics.") 



OLD IRONSIDES. 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky ; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 

And burst the cannon's roar ; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more. 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 
When winds were hurrying o'er the flood, 

And waves were white below, 
No more shall feel the victor's tread, 

Or know the conquered knee ; 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 

The eagle of the sea ! 
213 



214 American Song, 

O better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave ; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave ; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every thread-bare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, 

The lightning and the gale ! 




III. Contemporaries. 

The war-ballads of 1861, and the poems of 
authors for the most part still living, form the char- 
acteristic element in the verse of the country for the 
last forty years. What shall be said of it ? Has it 
continued the poetic tradition formed by the ** Clas- 
sics ? " And what has been its own force and indi- 
cation ? 

Considering the general dearth of poetry through- 
out the civilized world as compared to the splendid 
lyric flowering of half or three quarters of a century 
ago, it is not strange that America does not at this 
moment teem with new and stirring poetry. On the 
other hand, the total amount of the poetry current 
has been greater than might be estimated from the 
common reference and the rather general disparage- 
ment. By careful comparison and collation of dates, 
it could be readily shown that the last twenty-five 
years has been one of the most fruitful periods for 
poetry in America, perhaps only second in value to 
the twenty-five years, of which 1850 was the centre.* 
This productiveness has not been confined to those 

* Reckon up, for instance, what Lowell has written since the 
Commemoration Ode, Whittier since The Tent on the Beach, and all 
that Lanier has written ; and add the poems of Miller, Bret Harte, 
O'Reilly, Riley, Woodberry, and others. 

215 



2i6 A^nerican Song. 

whose names have for nearly fifty years been historic. 
On the contrary, while few have startled with claims 
for greatness, poetry as an art has been widespread ; 
more literary workmen than ever before have had 
skill and have secured for it recognition, and sincerity 
in the expression of the poet's personality has been 
greater than any imitative dependence on foreign 
models. 

Another advance has been in the evolution of in- 
dividuals or groups in different sections of the 
country, who have, in a measure, given the feeling 
and the physiognomy of their locality. New Eng- 
land had already been sung; but as an expression 
of the breadth of national life and consciousness, 
have appeared singers in New York, in the South, in 
the middle West, and in California. Others have 
presented their own emotions as dominant over the 
intellectual wealth of the Old World. 

Among this poetry, the verse written in New York 
has possibly had the greatest breadth and national 
character ; not only the scenes of the city itself, but 
those of the country as a whole, and often world-wide 
themes have attracted writers. The South has a 
poetry of peace as well as of war which may be charac- 
terized as being proudly and loyally self-centred. The 
middle West has been the least fertile of all. We 
do not know that region yet in its capacity for sug- 
gestiveness. Noteworthy, however, is the Californian 
group, whose productions have shown luxuriant 
fancy, but have been somewhat stinted by lack of 
favorable material conditions in their section of the 
country. With reference to the whole group of 



Contemporaries , 2 1 7 

"Contemporaries," it may be noted that there has 
been a good deal of attention to form. Slovenliness 
has been a less common fault than artificiality ; and 
while a studied disregard of art has made its appear- 
ance once, it has not found favor. Perhaps, how- 
ever, too much attention has been paid to form, and 
too little to matter. For form itself is only a means 
to an end, although, on the lower plane of subjects, 
it sometimes deceives by seeming to be an end in 
itself ; and in successful higher work by being almost 
identical with its idea. Whitman, Taylor, and 
Lanier are in this period figures all worthy of special 
study, and the selections from them have therefore 
been put in a subdivision by themselves. Other 
poets have written work which in a general consider- 
ation cannot be overlooked. Of them, the most 
picturesque and striking figure has been Joaquin 
Miller. He is a poet by temperament, but one of a 
temperament more common in the early years of the 
century than in these days of colder blood. His 
poems have a wealth and gorgeousriess of color that 
no American has equalled. Of late his work has ex- 
hibited signs of a revising care that not all poets 
give. Thomas Bailey Aldrich is a poet of exquisite 
culture. John Boyle O'Reilly had a life and char- 
acter more worthy even than the metrical frame 
which surrounds the sketch of it. Among the poets 
of the South, Hayne possessed a gentleness and 
humor, and Timrod a thought and seriousness that 
render them both of marked attractiveness. 

Without mentioning others, it may be said that 
for few in this period has poetry been constantly the 



2i8 American Song, 

one aim. With some it is only an utterance of 
momentary youthful sentiment ; others have not 
reached any real mastery until after middle life. For 
most of them, apparently, nature and experience 
are not rich enough, or perseverance in the poetic 
direction great enough, for filling out a life devoted 
to the Muses. 

For the few, however, who would have devoted 
themselves thus, those to whom health or wealth or 
life itself were as nothing in their eyes in comparison 
with the prize of their high calling, circumstances 
have been hard, though never wholly baffling. No 
one of these men has, like Lanier, died so young as 
to fail in entering on the path of glory ; though no 
one of them has as yet achieved the assured fame of 
a " classic." 

Some one has said that the present ideal in Amer- 
ican poetry is an aggregation of distinct types. 
For the successful master of the verse of his land 
the ideal is rather an assimilation of these types by 
the artist, a reconstruction and reproportioning to a 
fairer whole. 

Such a purpose is not, perhaps, out of reach of the 
lyrist ; but there are some signs of movement toward 
drama, which is better adapted to the vast and 
varied phenomena of a nation's life. Thus far, at- 
tempts have been few, and if popular, they have 
been rude in form and primitive in treatment ; but 
the drama which is bot^ representative and civilized 
must show both the plainest and the stateliest of 
life, subject to such dramatic conditions as come into 
existence only at rare epochs. 



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CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. 



Christopher Pearse Cranch was born at Alexan- 
dria, Va., March 8, 1813. He was a painter and a 
poet, residing in Europe for several years, later on 
Staten Island, in Cambridge, and in New York. 
Cranch died at Cambridge, Mass., January 20, 1892. 

Cranch's poetry is a union of the grave and the 
gay. One might, on the reading of some pieces of 
his, ascribe to him a perpetual and irrepressible liveli- 
ness, were it not for his lines of sober meditation. 
An instance of this latter style is found in the 
Stanzas^ which flow forth, however, with as graceful 
limpidity as any of his lighter productions. 



STANZAS. 



Thought is deeper than all speech 
Feeling deeper than all thought 

Souls to souls can never teach 

What unto themselves was taught. 

We are spirits clad in veils : 
Man by man was never seen ; 
219 



2 20 American So7tg, 

All our deep communion fails 
To remove the shadowy screen. 

Heart to heart was never known ; 

Mind with mind did never meet ; 
We are columns left alone, 

Of a temple once complete. 

Like the stars that gem the sky, 
Far apart, though seeming near, 

In our light we scattered lie ; 
All is thus but starlight here. 

What is social company 

But a babbling summer stream ? 

What our wise philosophy 
But the glancing of a dream ? 

Only when the sun of love 

Melts the scattered stars of thought ; 

Only when we live above 

What the dim-eyed world hath taught ; 

Only when our souls are fed 

By the font which gave them birth, 

And by inspiration led, 
Which they never drew from earth, 

We, like parted drops of rain 
Swelling till they meet and run. 

Shall be all absorbed again. 
Melting, flowing into one. 




WILLIAM WETMORE STORY. 



William Wetmore Story, represents at present 
more completely than any other, the American artist 
at once in marble and in song. Story was born at 
Salem, Mass., February 12, 18 19, and is the son of 
Chief Justice Story. He was graduated at Harvard 
and entered the bar, but settled in Italy in 1848. 
Besides his sculpture, he has given to the world vol- 
umes of poems in his youth and age. His subjects 
deal with the region of the purely cultivated tastes 
rather than with the every-day life of the people. 



THE THREE SINGERS. 

" Where is a singer to cheer me ? 
My heart is weary with sadness, 
I long for a verse of gladness ! " 
Thus cried the Shah to his Vizier. 

He sat on his couch of crimson. 
And silent he smoked, and waited, 
Till a youth with face elated. 
Entered, and bent before him. 



222 American Song, 

He swung the harp from his shoulder. 
And ran o'er its strings, preluding, 
O'er his thought for a moment brooding, 
Then his song went up into sunshine. 

It leaped like the fountain, breaking 
At the top of its aspiration, 
It fell from its culmination. 
In tears, to life's troubled level. 

He sang of the boundless future. 
That had the gates of the morning. 
His fancies the song adorning, 
Like pearls on a white-necked maiden. 

" My hope, like a hungered lion," 
He sang, " for its prey is panting ; 
Oh ! what is so glad, so enchanting 
As Manhood, and Fame, and Freedom. 

" To youth there is nothing given, 
The fruit on the high palm groweth, 
And thither life's caravan goeth. 
For rest and delight in its shadow." 

He ceased, — and the Shah, half smiling, 
Beckoned, and said, " Stay near me. 
Your song hath a charm to cheer me : 
Ask ! what you ask shall be given. 

" Now bring me that other singer. 
That ere I was born, enchanted 
The world with a song undaunted ! " 
They went, — and an old man entered. 



Story, 



223 



His forehead beneath his turban 
Was wrinkledj^he entered slowly, — 
Bending — and bending more lowly, 
Waited, — the Shah commanded — 

" Sing me a song ; " his fingers 

Over the light strings trembled, 

And the sounds of the strings resembled 

The wind, in the cypresses grieving. 

He sang of the time departed, 
In his song, as in some calm river. 
Where temples and palm-trees quiver, 
But pass not— his youth was imaged. 

*' Our shadow that lay behind us, 
Ere the noon-day sun passed o'er us, 
Now darkens the path before us, 
As we walk away from our morning. 

" Oh ! where are the friends that beside us, 

Walked in the garden of roses ; 

The dear head no longer reposes 

On the bosom, to feel the heart's beating. 

" Oh, Life ! 't is a verse so crooked. 
On Fate's sharp scimitar written. 
And Joy — a pomegranate bitten 
By a worm that preys at its centre." 

He ceased, and the harp's vibration 
Throbbed only, — a slow tear twinkled 
On the rim of those eyes, so wrinkled. 
And the fountain renewed its plashing. 



224 American Song, 

The Shah was silent — a dimness 
Clouded his eyes— from his finger 
He drew a great ruby — the singer 
Bowed low at this token of honor. 

At last, from his musing arousing, 
He spoke, " Is there none you can bring me 
The praise of the present to sing me. 
Seek him and bring him before me." 

He waited — the morning — the noonday 
Passed — at last, when the shadows 
Lengthened on gardens and meadows, 
A poor, maimed cripple, they brought him. 

"What \ yoii sing the praise of the present ; 
You, by Fortune and Fate so forsaken. 
What charms can the Present awaken ? " 
" I love and am loved," was the answer. 




THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS. 



Thomas William Parsons is best known as the 
author of the lines On a Bust of Dante, He was 
born at Boston, Mass., August i8, 1819. He gave 
himself thoroughly to the study of Italian, especially 
Dante, spending much time in Italy. Parsons died 
at Scituate, Mass., September 3, 1892. 

The themes of his poems are usually of a grave 
and elevated order. A number of them have a stern, 
tragic beauty, which is largely subjective with their 
artist. 



ON A BUST OF DANTE. 

See, from this counterfeit of him 

Whom Arno ^ shall remember long, 
How stern of lineament, how grim, 

The father was of Tuscan song ! 
There but the burning sense of wrong, 

Perpetual care and scorn, abide ; 
Small friendship for the lordly throng ; 

Distrust of all the world beside. 

' Arno^ An Italian river flowing through Florence. 
^5 225 



226 American Song, 

Faithful if this wan image be, 

No dream his life was, — but a fight ! 
Could any Beatrice see 

A lover in that anchorite ? 
To that cold Ghibeline's ^ gloomy sight 

Who could have guessed the visions came 
Of Beauty, veiled with heavenly light, 

In circles of eternal flame ? 

The lips as Cumae's ^ cavern close, 

The cheeks with fast and sorrow thin. 
The rigid front, almost morose, 

But for the patient hope within. 
Declare a life whose course hath been 

Unsullied still, though still severe. 
Which, through the wavering days of sin. 

Kept itself icy-chaste and clear. 

Not wholly such his haggard look 

When wandering once, forlorn, he strayed, 
With no companion save his book, 

To Corvo's hushed monastic shade ; 
Where, as the Benedictine laid 

His palm upon the pilgrim guest, 
The single boon for which he prayed 

Was peace, that pilgrim's one request. 

Peace dwells not here — this rugged face 

Betrays no spirit of repose ; 
The sullen warrior sole we trace, 

The marble man of many woes. 

' Ghibeline, a political party in Florence. 

^ Cuma^ a preclassic town of Italy where dwelt the Sibyl. 



Parsons. 227 

Such was his mien when first arose 

The thought of that strange tale divine, 

When hell he peopled with his foes, 
The scourge of many a guilty line. 

War to the last he waged with all 

The tyrant canker-worms of earth ; 
Baron and Duke, in hold and hall, 

Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth. 
He used Rome's harlot for his mirth ; 

Plucked bare hypocrisy and crime, 
But valiant souls of knightly worth 

Transmitted to the rolls of Time. 

Oh Time ! whose verdicts mock our own, 

The only righteous judge art thou ! 
That poor, old exile, sad and lone. 

Is Latium's ^ other Virgil now : 
Before his name the nations bow ; 

His words are parcel of mankind. 
Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow. 

The marks have sunk of Dante's mind. 

^ Latium, the ancient name of the region of Italy whence arose the 
Latins. 




ALICE GARY. 



Alice Gary was born at Miami Valley, near Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, April 20, 1820. While still young, 
she published, in collaboration with her sister Phoebe 
Gary, various single poems, and in 1850 her first vol- 
ume. She died in New York, February 12, 1871. 

Much of Alice Gary's work has the true poetic 
method of indirectness, especially in The Gray 
Swan, The details of this story are suggested rather 
than expressed ; the gradual revealing of the sailor's 
identity, the emotions of the mother, and the char- 
acter of the sailor are presented with art. In this 
respect the poem is one of the finest in American 
literature. 



THE GRAY SWAN. 

" Oh tell me, sailor, tell me true, 
Is my little lad, my Elihu 
A-sailing with your ship ? " 
The sailor's eyes were dim with dew,- 
" Your litde lad, your Elihu ? " 
He said with trembling lip, — 
"What little lad ? what ship ? " 
228 



Gray, 



229 



" What little lad ! as if there could be 
Another such an one as he ! 
What little lad, do you say ? 
Why, Elihu, that took to the sea 
The moment I put him off my knee ; 
It was just the other day 
The Gray Swan sailed away." 

" The other day ? " the sailor's eyes 

Stood open with a great surprise, — 

" The other day ? the Swait ? " 

His heart began in his throat to rise. 

" Ay, ay, sir, here in the cupboard lies 

The jacket he had on." 

*' And so your lad is gone ? " 

" Gone with the Swan.'' "And did she stand 

With her anchor clutching hold of the sand 

For a month and never stir ? " 

*' Why, to be sure ! I 've seen from the land, 

Like a lover kissing his lady's hand, 

The wild sea kissing her, — 

A sight to remember, sir." 

" But, my good mother, do you know 
All this was twenty years ago ? 
I stood on the Gray Swan's deck, 
And to that lad I saw you throw, 
Taking it off, as it might be, so ! 
The kerchief from your neck." 
'* Ay, and he '11 bring it back ! " 

" And did the little lawless lad 

That has made you sick and made you sad, 

Sail with the Gray Swan's crew ? " 



230 American Song, 

" Lawless ! the man is going mad ! 
The best boy ever mother had, — 
Be sure he sailed with the crew ! 
What would you have him do ? " 

" And he has never written line 

Nor sent you word, nor made you sign 

To say he was alive ? " 

" Hold ! if 't was wrong, the wrong is mine ; 

Besides, he may be in the brine ? 

And could he write from the grave ? 

Tut, man ? what would you have ? " 

" Gone twenty years, — a long, long cruise, — 

'T was wicked thus your love to abuse ; 

But if the lad still live 

And come back home, think you you can 

Forgive him ? " *' Miserable man, 

You 're mad as the sea, — you rave, — 

What have I to forgive ? " 

The sailor twitched his shirt so blue, 

And from within his bosom drew 

The kerchief. She was wild. 

" My God ! my Father ! is it true 1 

My little lad, my Elihu ! 

My blessed boy, my child ! 

My dead, my living child ! " 




THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON. 



Thomas Wentworth Higginson was born at Cam- 
bridge, Mass., December 22, 1823. He was gradu- 
ated at Harvard, became an ardent anti-slavery 
agitator, and had an honorable career in the war as 
an officer of colored troops. For much of his life he 
has given himself to literary pursuits. Besides 
essays and stories, he has published a series of 
poems, some of which are marked by exuberance of 
joyous emotion. 



THE MADONNA DI SAN SISTO.' 

Look down into my heart, 

Thou holy mother, with thy holy Son ! 

Read all my thoughts and bid the doubts depart. 

And all the fears be done. 

I lay my spirit bare, 

O blessed ones, beneath your wondrous eyes, 
And not in vain ; ye hear my heart-felt prayer. 
And your twin-gaze replies. 

' The Madonna di San Sisto, Raphael's most celebrated Ma- 
donna. 

231 



232 American Song, 

What says it ? All that life 
Demands of those who live, to be and do, — 
Calmness in all its bitterest, deepest strife ; 
Courage, till all is through. 

Thou mother ! in thy sight 
Can aught of passion or despair remain ? 
Beneath those eyes' serene and holy light 
The soul is bright again. 

Thou Son ! whose earnest gaze 
Looks ever forward, fearless, steady, strong ; 
Beneath those eyes no doubt or weakness stays, 
Nor fear can linger long. 

Thanks, that to my weak heart 

Your mingled powers, fair forms, such counsel give, 

Till I have learned the lesson ye impart, 

I have not learned to live. 

And oh, till life is done, 

Of your deep gaze may ne'er the impression cease ! 
Still may the dark eyes whisper, " Courage ! On ! " 
The mild eyes murmur, " Peace ! " 




RICHARD HENRY STODDARD. 



Richard Henry Stoddard has won fame as poet, 
critic, and man of letters, while bound for many 
years by the responsibilities of business or of office. 
Stoddard was born at Hingham, Mass., July 2, 1825. 
He has published a number of volumes of verse, of 
which the earliest bears date 1849. ^^ ^^^ been 
an old associate and friend of Bayard Taylor and of 
Stedman. 

Stoddard's verse takes a wide range. It would be 
impossible in a brief mention to touch upon all his 
poetic undertakings ; but he is forcible alike in 
themes of home or of foreign lands. Stoddard's 
literary qualities are grace of fancy, strength, spon- 
taneity, and sincerity. 



THE COUNTRY LIFE. 

Not what we would, but what we must, 
Makes up the sum of living ; 
Heaven is both more and less than just 
In taking and in giving. 

Swords cleave to hands that sought the plough, 
And laurels miss the soldier's brow. 
233 



234 American Song, 

Me, whom the city holds, whose feet 
Have worn its stony highways, 
Familiar with its loneliest street, — 
Its ways were never my ways. 
My cradle was beside the sea, 
And there, I hope, my grave will be. 

Old homestead ! — in that old, gray town 
Thy wave is seaward blowing ; 
Thy slip of garden stretches down 
To where the tide is flowing ; 
Below they lie, their sails all furled, 
The ships that go about the v/orld. 

Dearer that little country house, 

Inland, with pines beside it ; 

Some peach trees with unfruitful boughs, 

A well, with weeds to hide it ; 

No flowers, or only such as rise 

Self-sown, — poor things ! — which all despise. 

Dear country home ! can I forget 

The least of thy sweet trifles ? 

The windows — vines that clamber yet. 

Whose bloom the bee still rifles ? 

The roadside blackberries, growing ripe. 

And in the woods the Indian Pipe ? 

Happy the man who tills his field, 

Content with rustic labor ; 

Earth does to him her fulness yield. 

Hap what may to his neighbor. 

Well days, sound nights, — oh, can there be 

A life more rational and free ? 



Stoddard. 235 

Dear country life of child and man ! 
For both the best and strongest, 
That with the earliest race began, 
And hast outlived the longest : 
Their cities perished long ago, 
Who the first farmers were we know. 

Perhaps our Babels too will fall ; 

If so, no lamentations, 

For Mother Earth will shelter all, 

And feed the unborn nations ! 

Yes, and the swords that menace now 

Will then be beaten to the plough. 




LUCY LARCOM, 



Lucy Larcom was born at Beverly, Mass., in 1826. 
In her early life she associated closely with working 
people, and from this experience she has drawn 
much of the material in her songs of labor. Some 
of Lucy Larcom's work has homely qualities, and 
resembles certain of the poems of Whittier, with 
whom she has had an intimate literary friendship. 
Her verse has also picturesque elements, and the 
more ethereal thought which springs from brooding 
on the nature of flowers and of clouds. A spiritual 
touch is thus infused into her poetry, refining the 
most common subjects, and giving them the liveli- 
ness which, with a certain clear-cut-purpose, consti- 
tutes the charm of her poems. 



A HAREBELL. 

Mother, if I were a flower, 
Instead of a little child, 
I would choose my home by a waterfall, 
To laugh at its gambols wild, 
To be sprinkled with spray and dew ; 
And I 'd be a harebell blue. 
236 



Larcom, ^z7 



Blue is the color of heaven, 

And blue is the color for me. 

But in the rough earth my clinging roots 

Closely nestled should be ; 

For the earth is friendly and true 

To the little harebell blue. 

I could not look up to the sun 

As the bolder blossoms look ; 

But he would look up with a smile to me 

From his mirror in the brook ; 

And his smile would thrill me through, 

A trembling harebell blue. 

The winds would not break my stem 

When they rushed in tempest by ; 

I would bend before them, for they come 

From the loving Hand on high. 

That never a harm can do 

To a slender harebell blue. 

I would play with shadow and breeze ; 

I would blossom from June till frost. 

Dear Mother, I know you would find me out, 

When my stream-side cliff you crossed ; 

And I 'd give myself to you — 

Your own little harebell blue. 



ROSE TERRY COOKE. 



Rose Terry Cooke was born at West Hartford, 
Conn., February 17, 1827, and died at Pittsfield, 
Mass., July 18, 1892. Mrs. Cooke has published 
several volumes of poems. In some of her work, as 
in that of most women who write verse, emotion is 
somewhat too restless, and ambitions are too little 
subdued and guided. In certain of her pieces, how- 
ever, of a modest effort, womanly feeling is gracefully 
presented. Mrs. Cooke's method is, under a light 
and fanciful guise, to advance true criticism of life. 
Columbine and Indolence are two of her best poems. 



COLUMBINE. 

Little dancing harlequin ! 
Thou thy scarlet bells dost ring 
When the merry western wind 
Gives their slender stems a swing ; 
Every yellow butterfly, 
Rising on the fragrant air ; 
Glittering insects everywhere. 
Moths that in the dead leaves lie, 
List the tinkling chime that tells 
Of the Spring's aerial spells. 
238 



Cooke. 239 

In the long and shining days 
May-time swings to mother Earth, 
From the stony crevices 
Dry with sun and grey with dearth, 
Where no other bloom can cling. 
Thou dost lift thy dainty spire, 
Slight and subtle mist of fire 
O'er the rock face shimmering, 
Nodding, swaying, scattering wide 
Flame and gold on every side. 

No faint odor fills thy cup, 
Nothing knowest thou but cheer, 
Over thee no memory 
Floats its pennant sad and dear. 
Gay and fleeting as is laughter. 
Or a little joyful song 
Wandering the woods along, 
That no echo cometh after ; 
Idle moth and strenuous bee 
Know that honey dwells in thee. 

When thy motley opens wide. 
Then the summer draweth near ; 
Then the sunshine shall abide, 
Vanished is the winter fear, 
Snowdrifts never come again 
When thou standest sentinel. 
Shouting gayly : " All is well," 
To the blooms on hill and plain 
Summer-bringing columbine, 
Make thy happy errand mine. 




THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. 



Thomas Bailey Aldrich was born at Portsmouth, 
N. H., November ii, 1836. He was prevented, on 
account of the death of his father, from carrying out 
a purpose he had formed of going to college, and 
devoted himself instead, to writing for the press. At 
the age of twenty he published The Ballad of Baby 
Bell, which is as fresh now as when written, and may 
perhaps still be considered his best poem. Wedded 
shows his exquisite finish of style, and his power of 
fitly condensing strong emotion into a short poem. 
He has written some charming prose stories and 
studies, based on the New England life he knows so 
well. 

WEDDED. 

{Provencal Atr.^) 

The happy bells shall ring, 

Marguerite ; 
The summer birds shall sing. 

Marguerite — 

* Provencal, the Romance language used in the south of France. 
240 



Aldrich, 



241 



You smile, but you shall wear 

Orange-blossoms in your hair, 

Marguerite. 

Ah me ! the bells have rung, 

Marguerite ; 
The summer birds have sung — 

Marguerite — 

But cypress-leaf and rue 

Make a sorry wreath for you, 

Marguerite. 
16 




ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN. 



Elizabeth Akers Allen was born at Strong, Frank- 
lin County, Maine, October 9, 1832. She published 
a volume of poetry in 1852, and a second in 1867. 
Since then her writings have received a large meas- 
ure of popular appreciation. She is remarkable as 
a poet of the love that is irrespective of sex. Her 
best known poem is Backward^ Turn Backward, O 
Time, in Your Flight. The Grass Is Greener Where 
She Sleeps is, however, simpler and less conven- 
tional in tone. Other poems of a like description are 
the sonnet, A Dream, and A Spring Love-Song. 



THE GRASS IS GREENER WHERE SHE 
SLEEPS. 

The grass is greener where she sleeps, 
The birds sing softlier there, 

And nature fondliest vigil keeps 
Above a face so fair, — 

For she was innocent and sweet 
As mortal thing can be, — 
242 



Allen. 



243 



The only heart that ever beat 

That beat alone for me. 
To me her dearest thoughts were told, 

Her sweetest carols sung ; 
To her my love song never old, 

My face was always young. 
Ah, life seems drear and little worth, 

Since she has ceased to be, — 
The only heart in all the earth 

That never loved but me. 




CELIA LAIGHTON THAXTER. 



The poems of Celia Thaxter are such as no one 
could write who did not know by continuous obser- 
vations the wonder and beauty of the sea. 

Celia Laighton Thaxter was born at Portsmouth, 
N. H., in 1836. Her girlhood was spent on the Isles 
of Shoals, where her father was light-house keeper. 
She has published several volumes of poems, some 
of the most characteristic of which describe the more 
sombre features of the seashore, such as the ocean 
tempest, the emotions of the watchers on the land, 
and the shipwreck. 



THE MINUTE-GUNS. 

I stood within the little cove, 
Full of the morning's life and hope, 

While heavily the eager waves 

Charged thundering up the rocky slope. 

The splendid breakers ! How they rushed 
All emerald green and flashing white, 

Tumultuous in the morning sun, 
With cheer and sparkle and delight ! 
244 



Thaxter. 245 



And freshly blew the fragrant wind, 
The wild sea-wind, across their tops, 

And caught the spray and flung it far. 
In sweeping showers of glittering drops. 

Within the cove all flashed and foamed 
With many a fleeting rainbow hue ; 

Without, gleamed bright against the sky, 
A tender wavering line of blue, 

Where tossed the distant waves, and far 

Shone silver white a quiet sail ; 
And overhead the soaring gulls 

With graceful pinions stemmed the gale. 

And all my pulses thrilled with joy. 
Watching the winds' and waters' strife. 

With sudden rapture, and I cried, 

" Oh, sweet is life ! Thank God, for life ! " 

Sailed any cloud across the sky, 
Marring this glory of the sun's ? 

Over the sea from distant forts. 

There came the boom of minute-guns ! 

War tidings ! Many a brave soul fled 
And many a heart the message stuns ! 

I saw no more the joyous waves, 
I only heard the minute-guns. 



HENRY TIMROD. 



Henry Timrod was born at Charleston, S. C, 
December 8, 1829. He studied at the University of 
Georgia, and afterwards tried journalism, but died 
after a rather sad experience of ill-health and 
poverty, at Columbia, S. C, October 6, 1867. 

Timrod is a poet less known doubtless than he 
might well be. He has written several war songs 
which are excellent of their kind. His best piece of 
work, however, is The Cotton Boll, which combines 
description and reverie, and in which he has given 
evidence of capacity that his shortened life did not 
permit him fully to develop. 



THE COTTON BOLL.' 

AVhile I recline 

At ease beneath 

This immemorial pine, 

Small sphere ! 

(By dusky fingers brought this morning here 

And shown with boastful smiles), 

^ The boll is the seed vessel of the cotton. 
246 



Timrod, 247 

I turn thy cloven sheath, 

Through which the soft white fibres peer, 

That, v/ith their gossamer bands. 

Unite, like love, the sea-divided lands, 

And slowly, thread by thread, 

Draw forth the folded strands, 

Than which the trembling line. 

By whose frail help yon startled spider fled 

Down the tall spear-grass from his swinging bed, 

Is scarce more fine ; 

And as the tangled skein 

Unravels in my hands. 

Betwixt me and the noon-daylight 

A veil seems lifted, and for miles and miles 

The landscape broadens on my sight. 

As, in the little boll, there lurked a spell 

Like that which, in the ocean shell. 

With mystic sound, 

Breaks down the narrow walls that hem us round. 

And burns some city here 

Into the restless main. 

With all his capes and isles ! 

Yonder bird, 

Which floats, as if at rest. 

In those blue tracts above the thunder, where 

No vapors cloud the stainless air, 

And never sound is heard. 

Unless at such rare time 

When, from the City of the Blest, 

Rings down some golden chime, 

Sees not from his high place 

So vast a cirque of summer space 

As widens round me in one mighty field. 



248 American Song, 



Which, rimmed by seas and sands, 

Doth hail its earliest daylight in the beams 

Of gray Atlantic dawns ; 

And, broad as realms made up of many lands. 

Is lost afar 

Behind the crimson hill and purple lawns 

Of sunset, among plains which roll their streams 

Against the Evening Star ! 

And lo ! 

To the remotest point of sight 

Although I gaze upon no waste of snow, 

The endless field is white ; 

And the whole landscape glows, 

For many a shining league away, 

With such accumulated light 

As Polar lands would flash beneath a tropic day ! 

Nor lack there (for the vision grows, 

And the small charm within my hands — 

More potent even than the fabled one, 

Which oped whatever golden mystery 

Lay hid in fairy wood or magic vale, 

The curious ointment of the Arabian tale — 

Beyond all mortal sense 

Doth stretch my sight's horizon, and I see, 

Beneath its simple influence, 

As if, with Uriel's ^ crown, 

I stood in some great temple of the Sun. 

And looked, as Uriel down !) 

Nor lack here pastures rich and fields all green 

Uriel, " God's Light," the archangel, 
" One of the seven 
Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne, 
Stand ready at command. " 

Milton, Paradise Lost. 



Timrod, 249 

With all the common gifts of God. 

For temperate airs and torrid sheen 

Weave Edens of the sod ; 

Through lands which look one sea of billowy gold 

Broad rivers wind their devious ways ; 

A hundred aisles in their embraces fold 

A hundred luminous bays ; 

And through yon purple haze 

Vast mountains lift their plumed peaks, cloud crowned ; 

And, save where up their sides the ploughman creeps. 

An unhewn forest girds them grandly round. 

In whose dark shades a future navy sleeps ! 

Ye Stars, which, though unseen, yet with me gaze 

Upon this loveliest fragment of the earth ! 

Thou Sun, that kindlest all thy gentlest rays 

Above it, as to light a favorite hearth ! 

Ye Clouds, that in your temples in the West 

See nothing brighter than the humblest flowers ! 

And you, ye Winds, that on the ocean's breast 

Are kissed to coolness ere ye reach its bowers ! 

Bear witness with me in my song of praise, 

And tell the world that, since the world began, 

No fairer land hath fired a poet's lays, 

Or given a home to man. 

But these are charms already widely blown [ 

His be the meed whose pencil's trace 

Hath touched our very swamps with grace, 

And round whose tuneful way 

All Southern laurels bloom ; 

The Poet of '* The Woodlands " unto whom 

Alike are known 

The flute's low breathing and the trumpet's tone, 

And the soft west wind's sighs ; 



250 American Song. 



But who shall utter all the debt, 

O Land wherein all powers are met 

That bind a people's heart, 

The world doth owe thee at this day. 

And which it never can repay, 

Yet scarcely deigns to own ! 

Where sleeps the poet who shall fitly sing 

The source wherefrom doth spring 

That mighty commerce which, confined 

To the mean channels of no selfish mart, 

Goes out to every shore 

Of this broad earth, and throngs the sea with ships 

That bear no thunders ; hushes hungry lips 

In alien lands ; 

Joins with a delicate web remotest strands ; 

And gladdening rich and poor. 

Doth gild Parisian domes. 

Or feed the cottage smoke of English homes. 

And only bounds its blessings by mankind ! 

In offices like these, thy mission lies, 

My country ! and it shall not end 

As long as rain shall fall and Heaven bend 

In blue above thee ; though thy foes be hard 

And cruel as their weapons, it shall guard 

Thy hearth-stones as a bulwark ; make thee great 

In white and bloodless state ; 

And haply, as the years increase — 

Still working through its humbler reach 

With that large wisdom which the ages teach — 

Revive the half dead dream of universal peace ! 

As men who labor in that mine 

Of Cornwall, hollowed out beneath the bed 

Of ocean, when a storm rolls overhead, 



Timrod. 251 

Hear the dull booming of the world of brine 

Above them, and a mighty muffled roar 

Of winds and waters, yet toil calmly on, 

And split the rocks, and pile the massive ore, 

Or carve a niche, or shape the arched roof ; 

So I, as calm, weave my woof 

Of song, chanting the days to come, 

Unsilenced, though the quiet summer air 

Stirs with the bruit of battles, and each dawn 

Wakes from its starry silence to the hour 

Of many gathering armies. Still, 

In that we sometimes hear, 

Upon the northern winds, the voice of woe 

Not wholly drowned in triumph, though I know 

The end must crown us, and a few brief years 

Dry all our tears, 

I may not sing too gladly. To thy will, 

Resigned, O Lord ! we all forget 

That there is much even victory must regret. 

And, therefore, not too long 

From the great burthen of our country's wrong 

Delay our just release ! 

And if it may be, save 

These sacred fields of peace 

From stain of patriot or of hostile blood ! 

Oh, help us. Lord ! to roll the crimson flood 

Back on its course, and, while our banners wing 

Northward, strike with us ! till the Goth shall cling 

To his own blasted altar-stones ; and crave 

Mercy ; and we shall grant it, and dictate 

The lenient future of his fate 

There, where some rotting ships and crumbling quays 

Shall one day mark the Port which ruled the Western seas. 



PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE. 



Acquaintance with the winning personality of 
Hayne is not one of the least enjoyments to be 
gained from the study of American poetry. Paul 
Hamilton Hayne was born at Charleston, S. C, 
January i, 1830. He was graduated at the Univer- 
sity of South Carolina, started to practise law, and 
then became an editor. He has published several 
volumes of poems ; but, like Lanier and Timrod, he 
found a poet's life necessitous. Hayne has written 
war lyrics, but he excelled in domestic sketches and 
in short pieces of quiet reflection on the subject of 
natural landscape, having the feeling of contentment 
that must precede repose in poetry. The two poems 
following are examples of the two styles. Hayne 
died at Copse Hill, Forest Station, Ga., July 6, 
1886. 



SONNET. 



Here friend ! upon this lofty ledge sit down ! 
And view the beauteous prospect spread below, 
Around, above us ; in the noon-day glow 
How calm the landscape rests ! — yon distant town, 

252 



Hay7ie, 253 



Enwreathed with clouds of foliage like a crown 

Of rustic honor ; the soft, silvery flow 

Of the clear stream beyond it, and the show 

Of endless wooded heights, arching the brown 

Autumnal fields, alive with billowy grain ; 

Say ! hast thou ever gazed on aught more fair 

In Europe, or the Orient ? — what domain 

(From India to the sunny slopes of Spain) 

Hath beauty wed to grandeur in the air, 

Blessed with an ampler charm, a more benignant reign ? 

A LITTLE SAINT. 

At the calm matin hour 

I see her bend in prayer, 
As bends a virgin flower 

Kissed by the summer air. 

! meek the downcast eyes ! 

But the sweet lips wear a smile ; 
How hard the little angel tries 
To be serious all the while ! 

1 tell her 't is not right 

To be half grave, half gay, 
Imploring in Heaven's sight 

A blessing on the day : 
She hears and looks devout 

(Although it gives her pain) ; 
Still, when the ritual 's almost out. 

She 's sure to smile again ! 

She shocks her maiden aunt, 

Who thinks it a disgrace 
That — do her best — she can't 

Give her a solemn face : 



254 Americmi Song. 



She '11 scold, and rate, and furae, 
And lecture hour by hour. 

Until she makes the very room 
Look passionate and sour ! 

Alack ! 't is all in vain ! 

Soon as the sermon's done, 
My fairy blooms again, 

Like a rosebud in the sun ; 
I can not damp her mirth, 

I will not check her play, — 
Is innocent joy so rife on earth 

Hers should not have full sway ? 

I asked her yester-night, 

Why, when prayer was made, 
Her brow of cordial light 

Scarce caught one serious shade. 
" Father," she said, ^^ you love 

Better to meet me glad. 
And so I thought the Christ above 

Might grieve to see me sad ! " 





HELEN HUNT JACKSON. 



Helen Hunt Jackson was born at Amherst, Mass., 
October i8, 1831. Mrs. Jackson was the author of 
graceful stories and clever travel sketches, but she 
also wrote verse. Some of her poetry is warm and 
glowing in its associations, as in The Riviera ; some 
of it is philosophical in aim, as in Doubt. Mrs. Jack- 
son died at San Francisco, August 12, 1885. 



THE RIVIERA.' 

O peerless shore of peerless sea, 
Ere mortal eye had gazed on thee, 
What god was lover first of thine, 
Drank deep of thy unvintaged wine, 
And lying on thy shining breast 
Knew all thy passion and thy rest ; 
And when thy love he must resign, 
O generous god, first love of thine, 
Left such a dower of wealth to thee. 
Thou peerless shore of peerless sea ! 
Thy balmy air, thy stintless sun, 

' The Riviera, a name given to two portions of the coast of the 
Mediterranean on either side of Genoa. 

255 



256 Americmi Song. 

Thy orange-flowering never done, 
Thy myrtle, olive, palm, and pine, 
Thy golden figs, thy ruddy wine, 
Thy subtle and resistless spell 
Which all men feel and none can tell ! 
Oh peerless shore of peerless sea ! 
From all the world we turn to thee ; 
No wonder deem we thee divine 
Some god was lover first of thine. 

DOUBT. 

They bade me cast the thing away. 
They pointed to my hands all bleeding, 
They listened not to all my pleading ; 

The thing I meant I could not say ; 

I knew that I should rue the day 

If once I cast that thing away. 

I grasped it firm, and bore the pain ; 
The thorny husks I stripped and scattered 
If I could reach its heart, what mattered 

If other men saw not my gain. 

Or even if I should be slain ? 

I knew the risks ; I chose the pain. 

Oh had I cast that thing away, 
I had not found what most I cherish, 
A faith without which I should perish, — 
The faith which, like a kernel, lay 
Hid in the husks which on that day 
My instinct would not throw away ! 




BRET HARTE. 



Bret Harte was born at Albany, N. Y., August, 
1839. H^ early began the work of a man of letters, 
and has been a voluminous author. His greater 
reputation and production as a writer of romance 
hide his gifts as a poet ; but if his noted and note- 
worthy poems be counted up, they make no mean 
showing. Of these, John Burns and How Are YoUj 
Sanitary \ deal with certain of the less gloomy as- 
pects of life in the civil war. Plain Language from 
Truthful James is a sportive squib at the Chinese. 
Her Letter is characterized by California simplicity 
of manners and feeling. Dickens in Camp is the 
most touching of Harte's poems. The Angelus, 
however, is the most poetical, reviving the dreamy 
romance of California's past. 



THE ANGELUS. 
{Heard at the Mission Dolores,^ 1868.) 

Bells of the past, whose long forgotten music 

Still fills the wide expanse, 
Tingeing the sober twilight of the present 

With color of romance ! 

^ Mission Dolores, an old Spanish Mission in San Francisco. 
17 257 



258 American So7^g, 

I hear your call, and see the sun descending 

On rock and wave and sand, 
As down the coast the Mission voices blending. 

Girdle the heathen land. 

Within the circle of your incantation 

No blight nor mildew falls ; 
Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition 

Passes those airy walls. 

Borne on the swell of your long waves receding, 

I touch the farther Past, — 
I see the dying glow of Spanish glory, 

The sunset dream and last ! 

Before me rise the dome-shaped Mission towers, 

The white Presidio ; 
The swart commander in his leathern jerkin. 

The priest in stole of snow. 

Once more I see Portala's ^ cross uplifting 

Above the setting sun ; 
And past the headland, northward, slowly drifting 

The freighted galleon. 

O solemn bells ! whose consecrated masses 

Recall the faith of old, — 
O tinkling bells ! that lulled with twilight music 

The spiritual fold. 

Your voices break and falter in the darkness, — 

Break, falter, and are still ; 
And veiled and mystic, like the Host decending, 
The sun sinks from the hill ! 
^ Portala's Cross. See Harte's poem on the subject, Overland 
Monthly, vol. 3. 



EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. 



Edward Rowland Sill was born at Windsor, Conn., 
April 29, 1 84 1. He was graduated at Yale, and en- 
gaged in varied work, finally becoming professor of 
English literature at the University of California. 
He died at Cleveland, Ohio, February 27, 1887. Sill 
wrote long poems, but like many other poets he is 
at his best in his shorter productions. When he has 
risen into thoughtfulness out of a certain excessive 
consciousness, in his expression, of pain, difificulty, or 
other emotion that sometimes mars his technical 
execution, his verse has an edge and force that is in- 
cisive and significant. 



THE FOOL'S PRAYEE.. 

The Royal feast was done ; the King 

Sought out some new sport to banish care. 

And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, 

Kneel down and make for us a prayer ! " 

The jester doffed his cap and bells, 
And stood the mocking court before ; 
259 



26o Americaii Song. 

They could not see the bitter smile 
Behind the painted grin he wore. 



He bowed his head and bent his knee 
Upon the monarch's silken stool ; 

His pleading voice arose : " O Lord, 
Be merciful to me, a fool ! 

" No pity, Lord, could change the heart 
From red with wrong to white as wool ; 

The rod must heal the sin ; but Lord, 
Be merciful to me a fool ! 

" 'T is not by guilt the onward sweep 
Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay , 

'T is by our follies that so long 
We hold the earth from heaven away. 

" These clumsy feet, still in the mire. 
Go crushing blossoms without end ; 

These hard well-meaning hands we thrust 
Among the heart-strings of a friend. 

" The ill-timed truth we might have kept — 
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ? 

The word we had not sense to say — 
Who knows how grandly it had rung ? 

'' Our faults no tenderness should ask. 

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; 

But for our blunders — oh, in shame 
Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 



SilL 



261 



" Earth bears no balsam for mistakes ; 

Men crown the knave and scourge the tool 
That did his will ; but Thou, O Lord, 

Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 

The room was hushed ; in silence rose 
The King, and sought his gardens cool, 

And walked apart, and murmured low, 
" Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 





JOAQUIN MILLER. 



No general account of American literature can be 
complete without some mention of Joaquin Miller. 
Cincinnatus Hiner Miller, was born in the Wabash 
District, Ind., November lo, 1841. From 1854 on 
he lived in Oregon or California, being an editor 
in Oregon and for four years County Judge there. 
Having visited Europe in 1870, he published Songs 
of the Sierras. Other volumes have followed, among 
them The DaniteSy which has a merit that seems now 
unusual for a literary play, that of being successful 
on the stage. 

Almost from the very outset of Miller's career, it 
was evident that his genius was larger than his 
literary surroundings. His earlier Californian verse 
was the prelude to the wider, richer note of Songs of 
the Sierras and Songs of the Sunlands. Among Mil- 
ler's poems it is not easy, both on account of his 
range and of his prolificness, to make a choice for the 
purpose of commentary. Among other productions 
may well be selected, however, his pictures of the 
flying journey by rail across the American continent, 
his tales of pioneer adventure, and his idyl, the scene 
of which is laid upon the Amazon. Miller's power 

262 



Miller. 263 

would not have been shown but for his longer 
poems, although the more critical reader may pre- 
fer the shorter ones. Of the latter, In Yosemite 
Valley is onomatopoetic, keenly descriptive, and 
strongly, though perhaps a little dimly, reverential. 
Charity is an original treatment of a favorite subject 
in painting and poetry and contains some fine single 
lines. On the whole, Miller's poems show a genius 
which even yet has probably not fully developed 
itself. 



AT BETHLEHEM. 

*' In the desert a fountain is springing. 
In the wild waste there still is a tree." 

" Though the many lights dwindle to one light, 
There is help if the heavens have one." 

" Change lays not her hand upon truth." 

With incense and myrrh and sweet spices, 
Frankincense and sacredest oil 
In ivory, chased with devices 
Cut quaint and in serpentine coil ; 
Heads bared and held down to the bosom ; 
Brows massive with wisdom and bronzed ; 
Beards white as the white may in blossom, 
And borne to the breast and beyond, — 
Came the Wise of the East, bending lowly 
On staffs, with garments girt round 
With girdles of hair, to the Holy 



264 American Song. 

Child Christ, in their sandals. The sound 
Of song and thanksgiving ascended — 
Deep night ! Yet some shepherds afar 
Heard a wail with the worshiping blended 
And they then knew the sign of the star. 



IN YOSEMITE VALLEY. 

Sound ! sound ! sound ! 
O colossal walls as crown'd 
In one eternal thunder ! 

Sound ! sound ! sound ! 
O ye oceans overhead, 
While we walk, subdued in wonder, 
In the ferns and grasses, under 
And beside the swift Merced ! * 

Fret ! fret ! fret ! 
Streaming, sounding banners, set 
On the giant granite castles 
In the clouds and in the snow ! 
But the foe he comes not yet, — 
We are loyal, valiant vassals. 
And we touch the trailing tassels 
Of the banners far below. 

Surge ! surge ! surge ! 
From the white Sierra's verge, 
To the very valley blossom. 

Surge ! surge ! surge ! 

' Merced, a river in California, rising in the Sierra Nevadas, and 
flowing into the San Joaquin. 



Miller. 265 

Yet the song-bird builds a home, 
And the mossy branches cross them, 
And the tasselled tree-tops toss them, 
In the clouds of falling foam. 

Sweep ! sweep ! sweep ! 
O ye heaven-born and deep. 
In one dread, unbroken chorus ! 
We may wonder or may weep, — 
We may wait on God before us ; 
We may shout or lift a hand, — 
We may bow down or deplore us. 
But may never understand. 

Beat ! beat ! beat ! 
We advance, but would retreat 
From this restless, broken breast 
Of the earth in a convulsion. 
We would rest, but dare not rest, 
For the angel of expulsion 
From this Paradise below 
Waves us onward and — we go. 

CHARITY. 

Her hands were clasped downward and doubled. 

Her head was held down and depressed. 
Her bosom, like white billows troubled. 

Fell fitful and rose in unrest. 

Her robes were all dust and disorder'd 

Her glory of hair and her brow, 
Her face, that had lifted and lorded, 

Fell pallid and passionless now. 



266 American Song. 

She heard not accusers that brought her 

In mockery hurried to Him, 
Nor heeded, nor said, nor besought her 

With eyes lifted doubtful and dim. 

All crushed and stone-cast in behavior, 
She stood as a marble would stand, 

Then the Saviour bent down, and the Saviour 
In silence wrote on in the sand. 

What wrote He ? How fondly one lingers 
And questions, what holy command 

Fell down from the beautiful fingers 
Of Jesus, like gems in the sand. 

O better the Scian ^ uncherished 

Had died ere a note or device 
Of battle was fashioned, than perished 

This only line written by Christ. 

He arose and he look'd on the daughter 

Of Eve, like a delicate flower, 
And he heard the revilers that brought her — 

Men stormy and strong as a tower ; 

And he said : " She has sinn'd ; let the blameless 
Come forward and cast the first stone ! " 

But they, they fled shamed and yet shameless ; 
And she, she stood white and alone. 

* Scian, Homer, the greatest Greek poet, born perhaps at Chios, 
on the island of Scio. 



Miller. 267 



Who now shall accuse and arraign us ? 

What man shall condemn and disown ? 
Since Christ has said only the stainless 

Shall cast at his fellows a stone. 

For what man can bare us his bosom, 
And touch, with his forefinger there, 

And say, 'T is as snow, as a blossom ? 
Beware of the stainless, beware ! 

O woman, both first to believe us ; 

Yea, also born first to forget ; 
Born first to betray and deceive us. 

Yet first to repent and regret ! 

O first then in all that is human, 
Lo ! first where the Nazarene trod, 

O woman ! O beautiful woman ! 

Be then first in the kingdom of God ! 

PALATINE HILL. 

I. 

A wolf -like stream without a sound 
Steals by and hides beneath the shore, 
Its awful secrets evermore 

Within its sullen bosom bound. 

II. 

And this was Rome, that shrieked for room 
To stretch her limbs ; a hill of caves 
For half wild beasts and hairy slaves ; 

And gypsies bent within the tomb. 



268 A^nerican Song. 



III. 



Two lone palms on the Palatine, 
Two rows of cypress black and tall 
With white roots set in Caesar's hall, — 

A garden, convent, and sweet shrine. 

IV. 

Tall cedars on a broken wall. 

That look away toward Lebanon ! ^ 
And seem to mourn for grandeur gone : 

A wolf, an owl, — and that is all. 

A NUBIAN FACE ON THE NILE. 

One night we touched the lily shore, 
And then passed on, in night indeed, 
Against the far white waterfall. 
I saw no more, shall know no more. 
Of her for aye. And you who read 
This broken bit of dream will smile. 
Half vexed that I saw aught at all. 
The waves struck strophes on the shore 
And all the sad song of the oar 
That long, long night against the Nile, 
Was : Nevermore and nevermore 
This side that shadowy shore that lies 
Below the leafy paradise. 

' Lebanon, a mountain chain of Syria, having a grove of venerable 
cedars at its summit. 




CHARLES WARREN STODDARD. 



Charles Warren Stoddard was born at Rochester, 
N. Y., August 7, 1843. He has been an active news- 
paper correspondent and has taught at a university in 
Indiana. His contributions to poetry are interest- 
ing and characteristic. He pubHshed at San Fran- 
cisco in 1867 his first volume of verses. Among its 
contents is the vivid and faithful description of 
Mount Tamalpais, which is the highest peak rising 
from San Francisco Bay. 



TAMALPAIS.^ 

How manifold thy beauties are ! 
I do not reckon time or space — 
I worship thy exceeding grace, 
And hasten as a flying star 
To reach thy splendor from afar. 

The first flush of thy morning face 

Is dear to me ; thy shadowless 

Broad noon that doth all sweets confess ; 

* Ta?naipais^ a mountain in Marin County, California, of surpass- 
ing loveliness. 

269 



2 70 American Song. 

But fairer Is thy even fall, 
Which seems to cry with airy call 
Thy roses in the wilderness, 
Thy deserts blithely blossoming. 
Decoy me for the love of spring. 
With all thy grace and glitter spent, 
Thy quiet dusk so eloquent ; 
Thy vail of vapors — the caress 
Of Zephyrus right cool and sweet — 
I cannot wait to love thee less — 
I cling to thee with full content. 
And fall a dreaming at thy feet. 

Anon the sudden evening gun. 
Awakes me to the sinking sun 
And golden glories at the Gate. ^ 
The full, strong tides, that slowly run 
Their sliding waters modulate 
To indolent soft winds that wait 
And lift a long net newly spun. 
I see the groves of scented bay. 
And night is in their fragrant May. 
But tassel shadows swing and sway, 
Upon their glimmering leaves of grass — 
And there a fence of rail, quite gray, 
With ribs of sunlight in the glass — 
And here a branch full well arrayed 
With struggling beams a moment stay'd— 
Like panting butterflies afraid. 

Lo ! Shadows slipping down the slope 
And filling every narrow vale, 

1 The Gate, The Golden Gate. 



Stoddard, 271 

The shining waters growing pale — 
The mellow-burning star of Hope, 
And in the wave its silver trope. 
A slender shallop, feather-frail, 
A pencil mast and rocking sail. 
The glooms that gather at the Gate ; 
The sombre lines against the sky, 
While dizzy gnats about me fly, 
And overhead the birds go by, 
Dropping a note so crystal clear. 
The spirit cannot choose but hear. 
The hollow moon, and up between 
An oak with yard-long mosses, green 
In sunlight now as dull as crape ; 
The mountain softened in its shape, 
Its perfect symmetry attained — 
And swathed in velvet folds, and stained 
With dusky purple of the grape. 




JOHN VANCE CHENEY. 



John Vance Cheney was born at Groveland, N. 
Y., December 29, 1848. He has been teacher, 
lawyer, musician, and Hbrarian; and has Hved in 
Massachusetts, in New York City, and in San Fran- 
cisco. Mr. Cheney has done work as a critic, and as 
a poet. His volume of critical essays. The Golden 
Guess, taking high ground as to the matter of poetry, 
has been supplemented by later, separate papers 
on other poets than those treated in that volume. His 
books of poetry are named modestly Thistle-Drift and 
Wood-Blooms, Mr. Cheney has excelled as a poet 
on several sides. His Old Farm Barn shows his 
aptitude at a homely scene. He has given more 
attention, however, thus far to daintier art, as in Th^ 
Way of It, He has also treated sombre subjects, 
usually in poems with an undercurrent of suggestion 
beneath the description, such as On the Ways of the 
Night 

THE WAY OF IT. 

The wind is awake, little leaves, little leaves, 
Heed not what he says— he deceives, he deceives : 
Over and over 

272 



Cheney. '2.1 z 



To the lowly clover 
He has lisped the same love (and forgotten it, too) 
He will soon be lisping and pledging to you. 

The boy is abroad, dainty maid, dainty maid, 
Beware his soft words — I 'm afraid, I 'm afraid ; 

He has said them before 

Times many a score. 
Ay, he died for a dozen, ere his beard pricked through, 
And the very same death he will die for you. 

The way of the boy is the way of the wind, 
As light as the leaves is dainty maid-kind ; 

One to deceive 

And one to believe — 
That is the way of it, year to year, 
But I know you will learn it too late, my dear. 

ON THE WAYS OF THE NIGHT. 

Who did it, Fall wind, sighing, 
Who struck her cheek so white ? 

Why gathers she the wild waves flying 
On the ways of night ? 

No longer let her wander, 

Poor ghost, that she should freeze ! 

Tell her, help her over yonder 
To the tender trees. 

Th' unpitying, bitter weather ! 

Ere moon and stars be dead, 

Blow the yellow leaves together, 

Make the maid a bed. 
18 



JAMES HERBERT MORSE. 



James Herbert Morse was born at Hubbardston, 
Mass., October 8, 1841. He was graduated at Har- 
vard, and became a successful teacher in New York. 
His first volume, entitled Summer-Haven Songs, was 
published in 1 886. He has been a regular contributor 
to the Atlantic, the Critic, and other literary journals. 
Among his single poems, Loss, though short, is a 
good example of the author's poetic quality. Mazzini 
is an appreciative character picture. Morse's verse 
is often characterized by the utmost poetical delicacy 
and susceptibility, and he has the rare gift of saying 
much in few words. 



MAZZINI. 



His soul wrought long and wore the flesh away, 
But kept a shining edge, like brightest steel, 
That by its fearless strokes made nations feel 
What inward rottenness and swift decay 

Under the foot of social error lay ; — 
Ay, made them feel the centre-piercing pain 
274 



Morse, 275 

That lies about the birth of every gain, 
And makes the day of joy a wrathful day. 

Now, worn, quite worn, the scabbard old, 
The eye that lent its fire, the nerves so tense, 
The ready hand so firm — there darkly mould, 
And waste into their primal elements. 

And we, who saw where these brave things were laid. 
Ask vainly for that finely-polished blade. 





JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. 



The name of John Boyle O'Reilly is recognized 
in American literature as synonymous with the word 
heart. O'Reilly was born at Dowth Castle, Meath, 
Ireland, January 28, 1844. Committed, unfortu- 
nately, to imprisonment in Australia, on a political 
charge, he escaped and came to this country, making 
his home in Boston, where he has published several 
volumes of poems. He died at Hull, Mass., August 
10, 1890. 

O'Reilly has many gifts in the matter of poetry — 
keen analysis, an eye for landscape, and sharp, vivid 
expression ; but, more than anything else, stands out 
his sure, sententious judgment of character. 



THREE GRAVES. 

How did he live, this dead man here. 
With the temple above his grave ? 
He lived as a great one, from cradle to bier 
He was nursed in luxury, trained in pride, — 
When the wish was born, it was gratified ; 
Without thanks he took, without heed he gave. 
276 



GReilly, 277 

The common man was to him a clod, 

From whom he was far as a demigod. 

His duties ? To see that his rents were paid. 

His pleasures ? To know that the crowd obeyed. 

His pulse, if 3^ou felt it, throbbed apart, 

With a separate stroke from the people's heart. 

But whom did he love, and whom did he bless ? 

Was the life of him more than a man's, or less ? 

I know not. He died, there was none to blame, 

And as few to weep ; but these marbles came 

For the temple that rose to preserve his name ! 

How did he live, that other dead man, 

From the graves apart and alone ? 

As a great one too ? Yes, this was one 

Who lived to labor and study and plan. 

The earth's deep thought he loved to reveal ; 

He banded the breast of the land with steel ; 

The thread of his foil he never broke ; 

He filled the cities with wheels and smoke. 

And workers by day, and workers by night, 

For the day was too short for his vigor's flight, 

Too firm was he to be feeling and giving ; 

For labor, for gain, was a life worth living. 

He worshipped industry, dreamt of her, sighed for her ; 

Potent he grew by her, famous he died for her. 

They say he improved the world in his time. 

That his mills and mines were a work sublime. 

When he died — the laborers rested and sighed ; 

Which was it — because he had lived or died ? 

And how did he live, that dead man there. 

In the country churchyard laid ? 

Oh, he ? He came for the sweet field air ; 



2 78 American Song, 



He was tired of the town, and he took no pride 
In its fashion or fame. He returned and died 
In the place he loved, where a child he played 
With those who have knelt by his grave and prayed. 
He ruled no serfs, and he knew no pride. 
He was with the workers side by side ; 
He hated a mill, and a mine, and a town. 
With their fever of misery, struggle, renown ; 
He could never believe but a man was made 
For a nobler end than the glory of trade ; 
For the youth he mourned with an endless pity 
Who were cast like snow on the streets of the city. 

He was weak, maybe ; but he lost no friend ; 

Who loved him once, loved on to the end. 

He mourned all selfish and vain endeavor ; 

But he never injured a weak one — never. 

When censure was passed, he was kindly dumb ; 

He was never so wise but a fault would come ; 

He was never so old that he failed to enjoy 

The games and the dreams he had loved when a boy ; 

He erred and was sorry ; but never drew 

A trusting heart from the pure and true. 

When friends look back from the years to be, 

God grant they may say such things of me. 




RICHARD WATSON GILDER. 



Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century Mag- 
azine^ was born at Bordentown, N. J., February 8, 
1844. At the age of nineteen he did artillery service 
in the war. Afterwards he became a journalist, then 
editor of the Cejitury Magazine. Mr. Gilder has 
published several volumes of verse, giving evidence 
of a bold, vigorous personality, and of a fine nature, 
receptive to the higher influences. '''Oh ! Love is Not 
a Summer Mood,'' is a poem where his conceptions 
are at their purest. 



OH ! LOVE IS NOT A SUMMER MOOD. 



Oh, Love is not a summer mood, 
Nor flying phantom of the brain, 
Nor youthful fever of the blood. 
Nor dream, nor fate, nor circumstance. 
Love is not born of blinded chance, 
Nor bred in simple ignorance. 
279 



28o A^nerican Song. 



II. 



But love hath winter in her blood, 
And love is fruit of holy pain, 
And perfect flower of maidenhood. 
True love is steadfast as the skies, 
And once alight she never flies ; 
And love is strong, and still, and wise. 




GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. 



George Parsons Lathrop was born at Oahu, Ha- 
waiian Islands, August 25, 185 1. He studied in New 
York and at Dresden from 1867 to 1870. He has 
devoted himself to literature, and has published sev- 
eral volumes of poems. The selection below is an 
ode of broad, patriotic spirit, one of his best produc- 
tions in verse. 



STRIKE HANDS, YOUNG MEN ! 

Strike hands, young men ! 
We know not when 
Death or disaster comes, 
Mightier than battle-drums 
To summon us away. 
Death bids us say farewell 
To all we love, nor stay 
For tears ; — and who can tell 
How soon misfortune's hand 
May smite us where we stand, 
Dragging us down, aloof. 
Under the swift world's hoof ? 
281 



282 American Song. 



Strike hands for faith, and power 

To gladden the passing hour ; 

To wield the sword, or raise a song ; 

To press the grape ; or crush out wrong, 

And strengthen right. 

Give me the man of sturdy palm 

And vigorous brain ; 

Hearty, companionable, sane, 

'Mid all commotions calm, 

Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire ; 

Give me the man 

Whose impulses aspire. 

And all his features seem to say, " I can ! " 



Strike hands, young men ! 

'T is yours to help rebuild the state, 

And keep the nation great. 

With act, and speech, and pen 

*T is yours to spread 

The morning-red 

That ushers in a grander day ; 

To scatter prejudice that blinds, 

And hail fresh thoughts in noble minds ; 

To overthrow bland tyrannies 

That cheat the people, and with slow disease 

Change the Republic to a mockery. 

Your words can teach that liberty 

Means more than just to cry *' We 're free," 

While bending to some new-found yoke. 

So shall each unjust band be broke. 

Each toiler gain his meet reward 

And life sound forth a truer chord. 



Lathrop, 283 

Ah, if we so have striven 

And mutually the grasp have given 

Of brotherhood, 

To work each other and the whole race good : 

What matter if the dream 

Come only partly true, 

And all the things accomplished seem 

Feeble and few ? 

At least, when summer's flame burns low 

And on our heads the drifting snow 

Settles and stays, 

We shall rejoice that in our earlier days 

We boldly then 

Struck hands, young men ! 




JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY. 



James Whitcomb Riley was born at Granfield, 
Ind., in 1853. He first essayed the trade of a sign 
painter, then joined a company of strolling players. 
Afterwards he became a journalist and a lecturer. 

Riley is most generally known by his verse in dia- 
lect, which forms the greater part of his volumes of 
poems. He has reached, however, no mean attain- 
ment in more literary and purer English, which, if 
he can use with as good effect, may be granted to be 
of itself a better vehicle. The Orchard Lands of 
Long Ago and Our Kind of a Man give evidence 
that Riley's powers are equal to the production of 
something beyond merely local and ephemeral 
verse. 

THE ORCHARD LANDS OF LONG AGO. 

The orchard lands of Long Ago ! 
O drowsy winds, awake, and blow 
The snowy blossoms back to me, 
And all the buds that used to be ! 
Blow back along the grassy ways 
Of truant feet, and lift the haze 
Of happy summer from the trees 
That trail their tresses in the seas 
284 



Riley. 



285 



Of grain that float and overflow 
The orchard lands of Long Ago ! 

Blow back the melody that slips 

In lazy laughter from the lips 

That marvel much if any kiss, 

Is sweeter than the apples' is. 

Blow back the twitter of the birds — 

The lisp, the titter, and the words 

Of merriment that found the shine 

Of summer-time a glorious wine 

That drenched the leaves that loved it so. 

In orchard lands of Long Ago ! 

O memory ! alight and sing 
Where rosy bellied pippins cling, 
And golden russets glint and gleam. 
As in the old Arabian dream, 
The fruits of that enchanted tree 
The glad Aladdin robbed for me. 
And, drowsy winds, awake and fan 
My blood as when it overran 
A heart ripe as the apples grow 
In orchard lands of Long Ago ! 

OUR KIND OF A MAN. 



The kind of a man for you and me ! 
He faces the world unflinchingly 
And smites as long as the wrong resists, 
With a knuckled faith and force like fists ! 
He lives the life he is preaching of. 



286 American Song. 



And loves where most is the need of love ; 

His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears 

And his face sublime through the blind man's tears. 

The light shines out where the clouds were dim, 

And the widow's prayer goes up for him ; 

The latch is clicked at the hovel door, 

And the sick man sees the sun once more, 

And out o'er the barren fields he sees 

Springing blossoms and waving trees, 

Feeling, as only the dying may. 

That God's own servant has come that way, 

Smoothing the path as it still winds on 

Through the golden gate where the loved have gone. 

II. 

The kind of a man for you and me ! 

However little of work we do 

He credits full, and abides in trust 

That time will teach us how more is just. 

He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds 

Of querulous and uneasy minds. 

And, sympathizing, he shares the pain 

Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain ; 

And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand, 

We are surely coming to understand ! 

He looks on sin with pitying eyes — 

E'en as the Lord, since Paradise, — 

Else, should we read, Though our sins should glow 

As scarlet, they shall be white as snow ? — 

And feeling still with a grief half glad, 

That the bad are as good as the good are bad, 

He strikes out straight for the Right — and he 

Is the kind of a man for you and me ! 



EDITH MATILDA THOMAS. 



Edith Matilda Thomas was born at Chatham, 
Ohio, in 1854. She was educated at a normal school, 
and has written poems which have gained popularity. 
Miss Thomas's chief merit in verse is her style, which 
includes classical spirit, varied emotion, and fresh use 
of words. Her characteristic fault is that she does 
not usually subordinate clearly the numerous ideas 
of a poem to one dominant connection. In such a 
poem, however, as the Sea-Bird and Land-Bird her 
art attains harmony of purpose. 



SEA-BIRD AND LAND-BIRD. 

A land-bird would follow a sea-bird's flight, 
Over the surges and out of sight, 
It joyed to lave 
In the bead of the wave. 

And watched the great sky in its mirror glassed ; 
And all was well 
Till, with measureless swell, 
Under the gale rose the waters vast, 
287 



288 American Song, 

Then, baffled and maimed, 

With spirit tamed, 

The bird 'mid the drift on the shore was cast. 

Thou wast that sea-bird strong and light 

(Shall a land-bird follow a sea-bird*s flight ? ) — 

Wast fledged on high, 

Close under the sky ; 

The wandering cloud would sometimes bend 

With billowy breast 

Above thy nest, 

And in pity moist her substance spend ; 

No mate thou couldst find 

Like the fierce North Wind, 

And the tempest that tried thee most was thy friend ! 

I was that land-bird, frail and slight 

(Shall a sea-bird stay for a land-bird's flight ? ) ; 

Low on the earth 

I had my birth, 

In a sunny field where the days were long ; 

There as I lay 

I heard the spray 

Of the grass in June growing deep and strong ; 

Fast the days flew. 

And I followed, too ; 

And saluted the sun with my slender song ! 

Hear me, thou sea-bird, matchless in flight, 

Shaping thy course o'er the surges white ! 

In the making of things, 

Strength fell to thy wings. 

So that thou shouldst not falter nor tire 



Thomas. 289 

When beating abroad ; 

The breath of a god 

Was breathed through thy form, — and enduring fire. 

To me, out of heaven, 

No fire was given. 

Nor strength, but only the rover's desire. 

Shall a land-bird follow a sea-bird's flight, 

Over the surges and out of sight ? 

The Maker of things 

Has touched my wings 

And taken from me my blind unrest ! 

Now am I blent 

With the fields content, 

In the grassy deep where I make my nest. — 

Say can'st thou hear. 

My carol clear, — 

Thou, by the soundful sea oppressed ? 





GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY. 



George Edward Woodberry was born at Beverly, 
Mass., May 12, 1855. He was graduated at Harvard, 
and became professor first at the University of Ne- 
braska, later at Columbia College ; he has also been 
connected with the New York Nation. Mr. Wood- 
berry has published a history of wood-engraving, and 
a life of Poe. Studies in Life and Letters is a volume 
characterized, among American essays of the day, not 
only by a true *' interest in ideal living " as fed from 
contemporary sources, but by the presence of not a 
few elements, firmly grasped, of spiritual wisdom. 
Those in America who are idealists either in hope or 
fact may find these essays useful as a guide to the 
appreciation and better understanding of its author's 
volume of poetry entitled The North Shore Watch^ 
and Other Poems. Woodberry is a poet of patriotism 
in such verse as Our First Century ; while the poems 
At Gibraltar and To Leo XI I L show that he possesses, 
further, the steadfast moral quality of the English 
race, with its warHke Scandinavian feeling. 



290 



Woodberry. 291 

OUR FIRST CENTURY. 

It cannot be that men who are the seed 

Of Washington should miss fame's true applause ; 

Franklin did plan us ; Marshall gave us laws ; 

And slow the broad scroll grew a people's creed, — 

One land and free ! then at our dangerous need 

Time's challenge coming, Lincoln gave it pause, 

Upheld the ample pillars of the cause, 

And dying left them whole— the crowning deed. 

Such was the fathering race that made all fast. 

Who founded us, and spread from sea to sea 

A thousand leagues the zone of liberty. 

And built for man this refuge from his past, 

Unkinged, unchurched, unsoldiered, shamed were we, 

Failing the stature that such sires forecast. 

TO LEO xin. 

The German tyrant plays thee for his game ; 
Italy curbs thee ; France gives little rest ; 
And o'er the broad sea dost thou think to tame 
God's young plantation in the virgin West ? 
Three kingdoms did He sift to find the seed, 
And sowed ; then open threw the sea's v/ide door ; 
And millions came, used but to starve and bleed. 
And built the great republic of the poor. 

Remember Dover Strait that shore from thee 
Whole empires, hidden in the banked-up clouds 
Of England's greatness ! Of all lands are we. 
But chiefly Northmen ; still their might enshrouds 
The fates ; dream not their children of this sod 
Cease to be freemen when they bow to God. 



^^M 






^^^m 


ft^^B 





HELEN GRAY CONE. 



Helen Gray Cone was born at New York, March 
8, 1859. S^^ was graduated from the New York 
Normal College, and became teacher there. Miss 
Cone has published two volumes of verse. In some 
of her poems there are remarkable gleams of poetic 
insight, but her best attainment has been in fancy 
rather than in imagination. Among single poems, 
TAe Spring Beauties is especially distinctive in its 
blending of close observation and pleasant moraliz- 
ing. 



THE SPRING BEAUTIES. 



The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for 

church ; 
A thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his 

perch. 
" Happy be ! for fair are ye ! " the gentle singer told 

them. 
But presently a buff -coat Bee came booming up to scold 

them. 

292 



Cone, 293 

" Vanity, oh vanity ! 
Young maids beware of vanity ! " 
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee, 
Half parson-like, half soldierly. 



The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky 

blushes, 
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the thrushes ; 
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to 

pass. 
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the 

grass. 

All because the buff -coat Bee 

Lectured them so solemnly : — 
" Vanity, oh, vanity ! 

Young maids, beware of vanity ! " 

AN INVOCATION IN A LIBRARY. 

O brotherhood, with bay-crowned brows undaunted, 
Who passed serene along our crowded ways. 

Speak with us still ! For we, like Saul, are haunted : 
Harp sullen spirits from these later days ! 

Whatever high hope ye had for man, your brother. 
Breathe it, nor leave him like a prisoned slave 

To stare through bars upon a sight no other 
Than clouded skies that lighten on a grave. 

In these still alcoves give us gentle meeting. 
From dusky shelves kind arms about us fold, 

Till the New Age shall feel her chilled heart beating 
Restfully on the warm heart of the Old. 



294 American Song, 

Till we shall hear your voices mild and winning 
Steal through our doubt and discord as outswells 

At fiercest noon, above a city's dinning, 
The chiming music of cathedral bells ! 

Music that lifts the thought from trodden places 
And coarse confusions that around us lie, 

Up to the calm of high cloud-silvered spaces 
Where the tall spire points through the soundless sky. 




CLINTON SCOLLARD. 



Clinton Scollard was born at Clinton, N. Y., Sep- 
tember 1 8, i860. He was graduated at Hamilton 
College, and became professor there. Mr. Scollard 
has published several volumes of verse. He has 
taken advantage of foreign travel to use uncommon 
as well as familiar themes. His poetry is graceful, 
and in The Hunter and The Angler, has also the 
fresh atmosphere and spirit of out-door nature. 



THE HUNTER. 

Through dewy glades ere morn is high, 
When fleecy cloud-ships sail the sky. 

With buoyant step and gun a-shoulder, 
And song on lip he wanders by. 

He feels the cool air fan his brow, 

He scents the spice of pine-tree bough, 

And lists from moss-encrusted boulder. 
The thrush repeat her matin vow. 

Afar he hears the ringing horn, 
And, from the rustling fields of corn, 

The harvest music v/elling over. 
Greeting the autumn day, new-born. 
295 



296 A7nerican Song. 

In pendant purple globes he sees 
The wild grapes hang amid the trees, 

And, from the last red buds of clover, 
The darting flight of golden bees. 

He marks the fiery crimson gleam 
On wide primeval woods that seem 

Like armored hosts with banners flying, 
That march where weary warriors dream. 

Before him long-eared rabbits pass 

Like shadows, through the aisles of grass ; 

From copses, wren to wren replying. 
Utter for him a morning mass. 

He does not heed the partridge's drum, 
The squirrel's chattering, nor the hum 

Of myriad noises that, incessant, 
Down dusky forest arches come. 

He crosses quiet nooks of shade, 
With flickering sunshine interlaid, 

Where, when outshines the silvery crescent, 
Flit by the pixies, half afraid. 

Thus on and on he blithely speeds, 
Through briery brake and tangled reeds. 
Thinking of Robin ^ and his bowmen. 
And all the archer's daring deeds ; 

Till 'neath a slope by vines o'ergrown, 
Where, in the ages that have flown. 

The redmen slew their swarthy foemen, 
He stands beside a pool, alone. 

^Robin Hood, a famous English outlaw and huntsman, supposed to 
have lived in the reign of Richard I. 



S collar d. 297 



Deep in a thicket, dense and dim, 
That skirts the rushy water's rim. 

He crouches low and keenly listens 
For sound of hoof or stir of limb. 

At length he sees within the sheen 
Of trembling leafage, darkly green, 
A lustrous eye that softly glistens, 
And then a head of royal mien. 

The startled hillsides sharply ring, 
And answering echoes backward fling, 

While prone upon the earth before him, 
A proud red deer lies quivering. 

He swings his prize to shoulders strong. 
Then homeward swiftly strides along, 

The great blue skies a-smiling o'er him, 
And all around the birds in song. 

Behind the woods the sun creeps down 
And leaves thereon a crimson crown ; 

From sapphire portals, pale and tender, 
Venus o'erlooks the meadows brown. 

And now that shadows hide the lane 
Where rolled the orchard-laden wain. 

His weary feet upon the fender. 
He slays the red deer o'er again ! 

THE ANGLER. 

He rises ere the dews at dawn 
Like diamonds gleam upon the lawn ; 
And down the fragrant pasture goes 
Through buttercups and wild primrose ; 



298 American Song. 



The bobolinks amid the grass 
Laugh merrily to see him pass, 
O foolish gossips in the mist, 
He speeds to keep no morning tryst ! 

With fixed intent, he does not heed 
The mottled moth, a fairy steed. 
That seeks the wood till night enfold 
The day, and steal its wealth of gold. 
He gains the grove where woodbines twine 
Around the boles of elm and pine 
Nor pauses till he stands amid 
The reeds where Pan the piper hid. 

What joy is his to see the gleam 
Of silvery fin within the stream. 
To hold in leash each eager sense 
With silence breathless and intense, 
To mark an arrowy flash, and feel 
The sudden pulsing of the reel. 
As with electric current fine 
He sends his nerve along the line. 

Companioned by a keen desire 
His sturdy patience does not tire ; 
Through morning hours in sun or rain, 
He smiles content with meagre gain ; 
Breathing the perfect calm that broods. 
In nature's secret solitudes, 
Gleaning from river, wood, and sky, 
A deep and broad philosophy. 



MINNIE GILMORE. 



Minnie Gllmore was born at Boston, Mass., i8 — •. 
She is the daughter of P. S. Gilmore, the well known 
musician. The graceful poem below, which was 
written at New York, is taken from Miss Gilmore's 
volume of poems, Pipes from the Prairies. Miss 
Gilmore is better known as a novelist than as a poet, 
by her stories, A Son of Esau and The Woman That 
Stood Between, The latter is a tale of the life of an 
anarchist. The former deals with society in a west- 
ern State. Miss Gilmore is one of the few who have 
succeeded in the novel in bringing out the difference 
between Eastern and Western ethics and manners. 
In verse, her style has charm ; in the novel, charm 
and power. 



THE DESERTED CHAPEL. 

A chapel by the wayside 
Silent and dark and chill ; 
Out of the gloom, and the solemn hush, 
The plaintive notes of a lonely thrush, 
And wail of whippoorwill. 
299 



300 American Song, 

White on the untrod threshold, 

Daisies in virgin file ; 
While stately grasses troop up in green, 
And scaling the steps that intervene, 

Fade in the dusky aisle. 

Silent within the belfry, 
A bell with shattered tongue ; 
And swallows twit on the chancel eaves 
Where wild vines clamber and twine their leaves 
The warm brown nests among. 

O chapel by the wayside. 

And tales thy ruins tell ! 
Out of thy shadows pale phantoms dart — 
Out of thy silence strange echoes start, 

O mute old iron bell ! 

Again the weary pilgrims 
Thine aisles tread as of yore ; 
Again the toll, and the measured tread 
Of patriot mourners who bear their dead 
Within thy shadov/ed door. 

Again the pealing organ. 

The roses down thy nave ; 
The laughing bells and the happy bride, 
Who saw not lying the year beside 

This tiny, moss-grown grave. 



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DORA GOODALE. 



Dora Read Goodale was born at Mount Washing- 
ton, Mass., October 29, 1866. She and her elder sis- 
ter, Elaine, wrote poetry young, and in 1878 published 
their first volume, Apple Blossoins, which was soon 
followed by other collections, entitled Lt Berkshire 
with the Wild Flowers, and Verses from Sky Farm. 
The poems are like their titles : fresh, naive, full of 
innocent happiness, and close observation of the sur- 
rounding nature. As was remarked by the reviewers, 
the poems of Dora and her sister were the produc- 
tions of children who held the poet's pen. 



A-BERRYING. 

Down in the meadow's border-tangle, 

Heavy and still in the parching heat, 
A little above the rugged angle 

Where the shadowy woods converge and meet, 
Is a wall, with blackberry vines o'errun, 

Scarlet leaves, as the woodbine is, * 

Buttercups, all ablaze in the sun, 

Gypsy-daisies and clematis ! 
301 



302 American Song, 

Here, as the restless winds pass over, 

The cat-bird swings in her thorny nest, 
As the berry-girls by chance discover 

A callow stranger beside the rest ! 
Swallows, a-tilt on the lichened rail, 

Wait a little until you pass, 
And the snake slips by and leaves a trail, 

Like to the wind in the meadow grass. 

Into the sweet September weather, 

Under the searching harvest fires, 
Lads and lassies go out together 

Eager to strip the bending briers ; 
Boys of the mountains, one by one, 

Girls of the uplands, wild and sweet, 
Gypsy-brown in the ardent sun, 

Scarlet-cheeked in the Autumn heat. 

Breaking in through the thorny hedges, 

Singing and whistling, blithe and gay. 
Wandering down to the woodland edges. 

Plucking asters along the way ; 
Following back thro' the pasture bars, 

With the heavy baskets, two by two, 
Under the lovely, distant stars. 

Into the darkness, into the dew. 



THE END. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



Aboard at a ship's helm, 115 
A chapel by the wayside, 299 

Ah, broken is the golden bowl ! the spirit flown forever ! 52 
A land-bird would follow a sea-bird's flight, 287 
Amid these days of order, ease, prosperity, 113 
A song, a poem of itself — the word itself a dirge, 114 
At the calm matin hour, 253 
A wolf-like stream without a sound, 267 
Ay, tear her tattered ensign down ! 213 
Back from the trebly crimsoned field, 202 
Bells of the past, whose long-forgotten music, 257 
" Corporal Green ! " the Orderly cried ; 208 
Delicate cluster ! flag of teeming life ! 113 
Did you ask dulcet rhymes from me ? 1 1 1 
Down in the meadow's border-tangle, 301 
Fair flower that dost so comely grow, 139 
Fair river ! in thy bright, clear flow, 51 
Furl that Banner, for 't is weary, 210 
Give all to love ; 44 

Here, friend ! upon this lofty ledge sit down ! 252 
Her hands were clasped downward and doubled, 265 
He rises ere the dews at dawn, 297 
His soul wrought long and wore the flesh away, 274 

303 



304 Index of First Lmes, 

How did he live, this dead man here, 276 

How manifold thy beauties are ! 269 

I met the wild-eyed Genius of our land, 168 

In their ragged regimentals, 180 

In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, 82 

I saw him once before, 98 

I saw old General at bay, 112 

I saw thee once — once only — years ago, 53 

I stood within the little cove, 244 

It cannot be that men who are the seed, 291 

It was three slim does and a ten-tined buck in the bracken lay ; 126 

Life is a count of losses, 163 

Little dancing harlequin ! 238 

Look down into my heart, 231 

Lo, the unbounded sea, no 

Men ! if manhood still ye claim, 33 

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : 188 

Mother, if I were a flower, 236 

My life is like a stroll upon the beach, 176 

Not what we would, but what we must, 233 

Not youth pertains to me, 112 

O brotherhood, with bay-crowned brows undaunted, 293 

Often I think of the beautiful town, 73 

Oh fairest of the rural maids ! 17 

Oh, Love is not a summer mood, 279 

" Oh tell me, sailor, tell me true, 228 

One day, along the electric wire, 35 

One night we touched the lily shore, 268 

On Zurich's spires, with rosy light, 177 

O peerless shore of peerless sea, 255 

Our bugles sound gayly. To horse and away ! 195 

Out of the hills of Habersham, 132 

Rally round the flag, boys, 190 



Index of First Lines, 305 

Recorders ages hence, 1 1 1 

See, from this counterfeit of him, 225 

She comes — the spirit of the dance ! 166 

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen, 46 

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging, log 

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear I effuse 

unreturn'd love, no 
Sound ! sound ! sound ! 264 
Southrons, hear your country call you ! 192 
" Speak ! speak ! thou fearful guest ! 67 
Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs, ri 
Strike hands, young men ! 281 
The despot's heel is on thy shore, 198 
The German tyrant plays thee for his game ; 291 
The grass is greener where she sleeps, 242 
The happy bells shall ring, 240 
The kind of a man for you and me ! 285 
The little gate was reached at last, 89 
The orchard lands of Long Ago ! 284 

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church ; 292 
The rain is playing its soft, pleasant tune, 158 
There is a sighing in the wood, 58 
There was a young man in Boston town, 100 
The robin laughed in the orange-tree : 134 
The Royal feast was done ; the King, 259 
The sun set, but set not his hope ; 45 
The time has been that these wild solitudes, 13 
The wind is awake, little leaves, little leaves, 272 
The wind is roistering out of doors, 88 
They bade me cast the thing away, 256 

This ancient silver bowl of mine, it tells of good old times, 95 
This little rill that, from the springs, 20 
Through dewy glades ere mom is high, 295 



3o6 Index of First Lines, 

Thought is deeper than all speech, 219 

To him who in the love of nature holds, 7 

Traveller ! on thy journey toiling, 29 

Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, 88 

Voices from the mountain speak ; 18 

We are coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more, 204 

We were not many — we who stood, 161 

" What care I, what cares he, 183 

What think you I take my pen in hand to record ? no 

" Where is a singer to cheer me ? " 221 

While I recline, 246 

Whither, 'midst falling dew, 12 

Who did it. Fall wind, sighing, 273 

Who has not heard of the dauntless Varuna ? 206 

" Whose work is this ? " Murillo said, lyr 

Wild Rose of Alloway ! my thanks ; 143 

With incense and myrrh and sweet spices, 263 

Woodman, spare that tree ! 155 



INDEX. 



A-Berrying, 301 

Aboard at a Ship's Helm, 115 

A Dancing Girl, 166 

Agassiz, 92 

A Harebell, 236 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 217, 240 

Allen, Elizabeth Akers, 242 

A Little Saint, 253 

An Invocation in a Library, 293 

Antrobus, John, 183 

A Nubian Face on the Nile, 268 

Arnold, Matthew, 42 

At Bethlehem, 263 

At Swords' Points, 187 

Auf Wiedersehen, 89 

A Winter Piece, 13 

B 

Battle-Hymn of the Republic, 

188 
Boker, George Henry, 206 
Bryant, William Cullen, 2, 3-8, 

24, 50, 57, 62, 135-137 
Bums, Robert, 24, 143 



Cabot, J. E., 43 
Campbell, 143 



Carmen Bellicosum, 180 

Gary, Alice, 228 

Gary, Phoebe, 228 

Cavalry Song, 195 

Character, 45 

Charity, 265 

Cheney, John Vance, 272 

Clarke, James Freeman, 58 

Classics, I 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 4, 141 

Columbine, 238 

Cone, Helen Gray, 292 

Contemporaries, 215 

Cooke, Rose Terry, 238 

Cooper, James Fenimore, T35 

Cranch, Christopher Pearse, 219 

D 
Dana, Richard Henry, 136, 141 
Dante, 76, 88, 225 
Delicate Cluster, 113 
Dixie, 192 
Doubt, 256 
Drake, Joseph Rodman, 136, 

143, 150 
Dryden, John, 124 

E 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, i, 39- 
43, 57, 58, 104 



307 



3o8 



htdex. 



Every Year, 163 



Fields, James Thomas, 190 
Forerunners, 135 
Freneau, Philip, 135, 139 



Gibbons, James Sloan, 204 

Gilder, Richard Watson, 279 

Gill, 51 

Gilraore, Minnie, 299 

Give all to Love, 44 

Godwin, Parke, Life of Bryant, 

5,8 
Goethe, Wolfgang von, 117 
Goldsmith, Oliver, 62 
Goodale, Dora, 301 
Goodale, Elaine, 301 
Gray, Thomas, Odes of, 62 

H 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene, 136, 143 
Harte, Francis Bret, 215, 257 
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, i, 50, 

51, 57, 79 
Hayne, Paul Hamilton, 217, 252 
Heri, Hodie, Cras, 46 
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 

231 
Hoffmann, Charles Fenno, 161 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 43, 

91-94, 105, 187, 213 
Homer, 266 
Howe, Julia Ward, 188 
Hunt, Leigh, 76 



Idleness, 158 
Ingram, 51 



Inscription for the Entrance to 

a Wood, II 
In Yosemite Valley, 264 
Irving, Washington, 2, 63, 135 
I Saw Old General at Bay, 112 
Italy, 18 

J 

Jackson, Helen Hunt, 255 
Johnson, Samuel, 62 

L 

Landor, Walter Savage, 158 
Lanier, Sidney, 122-125, 217, 

252 
Larcom, Lucy, 236 
Lathrop, George Parsons, 281 
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 

3, 50, 58, 62-7, 77, 79, 105, 

124, 137 
Longfellow, Rev. Samuel, 62, 67 
Lowell, Rev. Dr. Charles, 77 
Lowell, James Russell, 3, 5, 51, 

77-82, 117, 124, 136, 137, 190, 

215 

M 

Manrique, 63 

Mazzini, 274 

McMaster, Guy Humphreys, 180 

Miller, Cincinnatus Hiner, 215, 

217, 262 
Milton, John, 41, 62, 124, 248 
Morris, George Pope, 155 
Morse, James Herbert, 274 
Murillo and His Slave, 171 
My Lost Youth, 73 
My Maryland, 197 

N 

Nature, 60 
Neal, 135 



Index. 



309 



Norton, Charles Eliot, 82, 88 
Not Youth Pertains to Me, 112 

O 

Ode, 82 

O Fairest of the Rural Maids, 17 
Of Thine Own Countiy Sing, 168 
Oh, Love is not a Summer 

Mood, 279 
Old Ironsides, 213 
On a Bust of Dante, 225 
On Leaving California, 120 
On Lending a Punch-Bowl, 95 
On the Ways of the Night, 273 
O'Reilly, John Boyle, 215, 217, 

276 
Osgood, Frances Sargent, 166 
Our Kind of a Man, 285 
Our First Century, 291 



Parsons, Thomas William, 225 
Percival, James Gates, 136, 153 
Pike, Albert, 163, 192 
Plutarch, 62 
Poe, Edgar Allan, 3, 47-51, 104, 

137 
Pope, Alexander, 41, 124 

R 

Randall, James Ryder, 197 
Rantoul, 35 

Raymond, Henry J., 202 
Raymond, Rossiter Worthing- 

ton, 195 
Read, Thomas Buchanan, 177 
Recorders Ages Hence, ill 
Riley, James Whitcomb, 215, 284 
Roll-Call, 208 
Ryan, Abram Joseph, 210 



Saxe, John Godfrey, 171 

Scollard, Clinton, 295 

Scott, Sir Walter, 24 

Sea-Bird and Land-Bird, 287 

Shakespeare, William, 62 

Shelley, 94 

Shepherd, Nathaniel Graham, 

208 
Sidney, Sir Philip, 36 
Sill, Edward Rowland, 259 
Sometimes with One I Love, no 
Song of the Alpine Guide, 177 
Song of the Chattahoochee, 132 
Sonnet, 252 
Sprague, 135 
Stanzas, 219 
Stedman, Edmund Clarence, 

50, 51, 180, 201, 233 
Stoddard, Charles Warren, 269 
Stoddard, Richard Henry, 233 
Story, William Wetmore, 221 
Strike Hands, Young Men, 281 

T 

Tamalpais, 269 

Tampa Robins, 134 

Taylor, Bayard, 116-118, 217, 

233 
Tennyson, Alfred, 2, 94, 124 
Thanatopsis, 8 

Thaxter, Celia Laighton, 244 
The American Flag, 150 
The Angelus, 257 
The Angler, 297 
The Battle-Hymn of the Repub- 

lie, 188 
The Conquered Banner, 210 
The Cotton Boll, 246 
The Country Life, 233 



3IO 



Index. 



The Cow-Boy, 183 

The Dancing Girl, 166 

The Deserted Chapel, 299 

The Dying Veteran, 113 

The First Dandelion, 109 

The Fishing Boy, 176 

The Fool's Prayer, 259 

The Fountain, 29 

The Grass is Greener where She 

Sleeps, 242 
The Gray Swan, 228 
The Hunter, 291 
The Last Leaf, 98 
The Little Beach-Bird, 141 
The Madonna di San Sisto, 231 
The Minute-Guns, 244 
The Orchard Lands of Long 

Ago, 284 
The Poet in the East, 118 
The Revenge of Hamish, 126 
The River, 59 
The Riviera, 255 
The Rivulet, 20 
The Ship Starting, no 
The Silent, 58 
The Skeleton in Armor, 67 
The Spring Beauties, 292 
The Stars and Stripes, 190 
The Stethoscope Song, 100 
The Three Singers, 221 
The Trees of Life, 60 
The Varuna, 206 
The Way of It, 272 
The Wild Honeysuckle, 139 
Thomas, Edith Matilda, 287 
Thomson, 62 

Thoreau, Henry David, 175 
Three Graves, 276 
Three Hundred Thousand More, 

204 



Timrod, Henry, 218, 246, 252 

To a Butterfly, 153 

To a Certain Civilian, in 

To a Waterfowl, 12 

To Charles Eliot Norton, 88 

To Faneuii Hall, 33 

To Helen, 53 

To Leo XIII., 291 

To the River , 51 

U 

Underwood, R. H., 82 
Union and Liberty, 93 



Very, Jones, 56-8, 105 
Virgil, 227 

W 

Wallace, William Ross, 168 

Wanted — A Man, 202 

Ward, W. H., 125 

Wedded, 240 

What Think You I Take my 

Pen in Hand? no 
Whitman, Walt, 107-109, 217 
Whittier, John Greenleaf, 3, 5, 

24-9> 79, 105, 124, 190, 215, 

236 
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 136, 

137, 157 
Woodberry, George Edward, 51, 

215, 290 
Woodman, Spare that Tree, 155 
Wordsworth, William, 4, 141 



Yonnondio, 114 
Yourself, 59 



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